The legal relationship between Switzerland and the EU dates back to the 1950s and 1960s, when Switzerland concluded its first agreements with the then European Communities. Since then, numerous other agreements have been concluded. In view of this long history of development, it is not surprising that…

Leiden psychologist Carsten de Dreu was presented with the Spinoza Prize by Education Minister Van Engelshoven on 12 September. The award of 2.5 million euros will allow him to continue with his pioneering research on group dynamics.

Fatemeh (Simin) Tabassi Mofrad has recently received a project grant (€ 25,000) from LUF/Gratama Foundation for her ideas in investigating sex-by-genotype interactions in brain functions. She has a multidisciplinary research perspective which enables her to look at research issues from different angles.…

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) has granted health psychologist Andrea Evers a visiting professorship funding for Luana Colloca. This funding is linked to the KNAW’s Visiting Professors Programme which enables outstanding foreign researchers to spend time working in the Netherlands.…

Dr. Mei Wang, chair of ‘Leiden University - European Center for Chinese Medicine and natural compounds’ has been awarded the ‘Qihuang prize’. The prize is awarded by the Chinese Medicine Society in recognition of her significant contribution to Chinese medicine outside China and to further stimulate…

Sixty-four high school students from Slovenia, Czech Republic and The Netherlands have visited Leiden University in the week of 7-11 November, as part of the Talent Education Project. They split in eight groups, of which some went to the science faculty to conduct research projects.

Dr Joris Larik, Assistant Professor at the Europa Institute and Leiden University College, was invited to give a keynote address in Brussels. He gave the address entitled 'Navigating multilateralism or how to not become a Flying Dutchman' on 12 June 2024.

Health psychologist Kaya Peerdeman has won the article award of the Postgraduate School For Research and Education in Experimental Psychopathology (EPP) for the best academic paper in 2015-2016. Published in European Journal of Pain on 19 April 2017.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) was established in 1919 based on the premise that social justice is a condition for lasting peace. On 7 February 2019 the ILO celebrated its 100th anniversary with an international symposium to consider the future of the ILO.

AI programmes such as Suno and Udio allow the user to compose songs that bear an uncanny resemblance to the style and vocals of famous artists. Can artists do anything about this?

Last week, the 12th Annual Conference of the European Society of International Law (ESIL) took place on the topic of How International Law Works in Times of Crisis. The conference was hosted by the Riga Graduate School of Law in cooperation with the Latvian Constitutional Court. The conference intended…

Fractievoorzitters van linkse partijen roepen minister Faber op Mikael niet uit te zetten. Faber zegt niet bevoegd te zijn en verwijst naar het besluit van de Raad van State dat Mikael en zijn moeder definitief geen verblijfsvergunning krijgen. Mark Klaassen, universitair docent immigratierecht en lid…

On the 31st August and 1st September 2023, CompaRe hosted a conference on “Smart and lean integration: finding regional solutions to global challenges” in Leiden University’s Campus The Hague.

On 21 January 2019 Barbora Budinska and Melanie Fink, researchers at the Europa Institute, spoke at the Workshop ‘Accountability and Control of European Multilevel Administration: Current Challenges in EU Administrative Law’.

Professor Mariska Kret has received the Mercator Sapiens Stimulus, a new science prize from the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW). The prize consists of a sum of 1m euros.

On 16 May 2024, EU Talks?!, a student-based initiative, was delighted to organise its first session with the following theme: ‘Rule of Law in the EU: Beyond Poland and Hungary'.

On 14 May 2021, Melanie Fink spoke at the conference ‘EU Responsibility in the International System: Setting the agenda’, organised by the University of Thessaloniki

If male budgerigars can successfully open a puzzle box with food, they become more attractive to females. Biologist Carel ten Cate and Chinese colleagues published experimental evidence for this in a paper in Science on 11 January. Various Dutch and international media wrote about the paper.

On 11 January, the book chapter ‘Duty of care as a judicial review tool for SSM composite procedures’ written by Barbora Budinská and Jouke Tegelaar was awarded the 2023 Meijers Prize for best publication by a PhD candidate published in 2022–2023 in the research programme ‘The Progression of EU law’…

By the time you read this message, it will already be February. But since this is our first newsletter of the year, I still feel compelled to wish all of you a very happy New Year!

On Wednesday 18 May, the students of the LL.M. Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights presented their work to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child with the aim to provide recommendations on how to make its decision more accessible to children.

‘From the ground up’: The politics of burial and memory in the early Islamic world

Carlotta Rigotti, postdoctoral researcher at eLaw – Center for Law and Digital Technologies, and Professor Clare McGlynn of Durham University have co-authored a new article in the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, titled 'Online and technology-facilitated violence against women: The EDVAW platform's…

Following years of negotiations between Member States and the European Parliament, there’s finally been a breakthrough for migration policy. What does it mean for the Netherlands, exactly? Mark Klaassen, Assistant Professor in Immigration Law, discusses this on various media channels.

On 13 February 2025, the student-led initiative EU Talks?! hosted the first panel discussion of the academic year 2024/2025 titled “America First, Europe Alone? - The Union’s Future Under Trump’s Leadership.” With Trump’s second inauguration, the event focused on the EU’s security challenges and future…

At the 66th Ordinary Session of the Authority of ECOWAS Heads of State and Government held in Abuja, Nigeria, on 15 December 2024, a landmark decision was made to establish the Special Tribunal for The Gambia.’ (Press release by the Ministry of Justice of The Gambia)

One of the EU's most heralded weapons against tax avoidance and evasion falls prey to political whims, is applied arbitrarily, and lacks transparency, according to tax observers and lawmakers.

On 28 January 2022, the Department of Legal Studies (Central European University), the Europa Institute (Leiden University), and the ESIL Interest Group ‘The EU as a Global Actor’ hosted an Expert Panel Discussion on the topic 'AI in the EU and Access to Justice'.

In light of her outstanding and inspiring achievements in the field of international dispute settlement, the Law & Practice of International Courts and Tribunals (LPICT) named a Prize in honour of H.E. Rosalyn Higgins in 2019.

The Council of Europe is currently implementing its Strategy for the Rights of the Child (2016-2021), one of the priority areas of which is “a life free from violence for all children”.

Vera Meester has won the annual Physics Image Award 2016, with her photo of 'smiling' colloids. The Volkskrant published the picture as Image of the Week.

From 23 to 24 February 2023, the Conference ‘The Future of the European Security Architecture: The CJEU’s decision on Passenger Name Records and beyond’ took place at the KNAW in Amsterdam.

The American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) has been pleased to announce Dr. Elizabeth de Lange as a recipient of the 2013 AAPS Fellows Award at the 2013 AAPS Annual Meeting and Exposition in San Antonio.

Could water be present in planet-forming disks before the formation of rocky planets? The James Webb Space Telescope may have found evidence for that. Webb has for the first time observed water in the inner disc around young star where at greater distance, giant planets have already formed. The research…

On 15 March 2023, the GLOBTAXGOV team at Leiden Law School met with the Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations (CIAT) to explore opportunities for cooperation, to discuss the needs of tax administrations in the field of international taxation and evaluate ongoing projects and new initiatives where…

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AI can help scientists to collect data about the earth faster. This saves them a lot of time on trying to figure out how to analyze all the data they collect. Julia Wasala, PhD student at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Sciences(LIACS), tells us how AI can be used to save time.

The Veni grant is awarded annually by NWO (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research). This year, multiple researchers from Leiden University and 2 researchers who will soon be working at the university will receive a Veni grant from the NWO. Thanks to this grant, which can amount to up to 320,000…

Toxys, Leiden University and Leiden University Medical Center have agreed immediately to commercialise and also develop further the ToxProfiler technology invented at the two institutions. ToxProfiler allows for rapid toxicity hazard identification of novel and existing drugs, chemicals, and other substances.…

Due to technological and societal developments, we are being flooded with more information than our brains can process. How does this affect our decision-making, both as individuals and as a society? And can we learn to make better choices? This is what Lotte van Dillen will explore with her profess…

Having a bachelor's, a master's and a PhD in Chemistry, Elena Sánchez López shifted to a more biological field of research for her postdoc. She completed all her studies at the University of Alcala, in Spain, before applying for a LEaDing fellowship at Leiden University, a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Cofund…

A flu virus could cause a pandemic. And then we would be poorly armed because flu viruses are starting to become resistant to flu medications like Tamiflu. Chemist Merijn Vriends successfully worked on an improved version of such medications. He will be awarded his doctorate on September 12th.

Claartje Levelt is professor of First Language Acquisition. She researches how babies and toddlers learn their mother tongue. Besides her work, she enjoys being involved with music.

An international team of laboratory astrophysicists and astrochemical modellers has shown that glycine, the simplest amino acid and an important building block of life, can form under the harsh conditions that govern chemistry in space. The results have been published this week in Nature Astronomy and…

Synthetic fuel is cleaner than natural oil, but its production process needs to be more efficient. Now for the first time, physicists have directly observed the molecules produced in the chemical process. This paves the way for designing more efficient catalysts. Publication on September 19th in Nature…

The team of Alireza Mashaghi at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research has found a way to determine and classify the shape of proteins. Their new theory defines the topology of proteins as a simple and precise barcode that allows the identification of all types of folds. ‘This barcode enables…