Linguist Sara Petrollino has written the first detailed grammar of Hamar, a language spoken in south-west Ethiopia that has some unique characteristics. PhD defence 10 November.

On 14 December 2017 Charlotte Mol was awarded the fifth Jaap Doek Child Law Thesis Prize for her thesis: ‘The Child's Right to Representation of Article 12 UNCRC in Family Law Proceedings: A comparison and evaluation of the legal frameworks in Australia, France, the Netherlands and South Africa’. This…

The effects of sustainability projects on poorer, marginalised people should be considered at a much earlier stage. This is the opinion of Marja Spierenburg, Professor of Anthropology of Sustainable Development and Livelihood, who will give her inaugural lecture on 25 February.

During the next three years, 6 promising researchers from the Faculty of Humanities who have just been awarded their PhDs will be able to further develop their research ideas funded by a Veni grant from the NWO. A total of 147 Veni grants were awarded of which 14 went to researchers at Leiden Univer…

Although Ebola is a virus with significant fatality rates, we still lack effective countermeasures to battle it. To change this, Alireza Mashaghi and his colleagues from the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research have successfully developed an organ-on-a-chip model that imitates the most dangerous…

Mahmood Kooria shows in his dissertation that Islam often adapts to the regional context. PhD defense 14 December.

Maarten Mous, Professor of African Linguistics at Leiden University, looks back on the 50th edition of the Colloquium of African Languages and Linguistics (CALL) and explains why this birthday was a celebration like no other.

Primate and test specialist Jane Goodall paid a visit to the Hortus botanicus in Leiden on 21 May for a ‘meet & greet’. Goodall, a world-famous researcher and nature protectionist, was presented with an orchid named after her and used the occasion to draw attention to the issue of plant protection.…

The virtual Exhibition Gold Matters is now live and can be explored online. This exhibition is the result of collaborations between artists, members of mining communities, and researchers of the Gold Matters’ project. Curating the exhibition is a collaborative effort of the Gold Matters Team with Sabine…

A new challenge for Felix Ameka. The senior lecturer at the Centre for Linguistics has been appointed professor by special appointment of Ethnolinguistic Vitality and Diversity in the World. ‘I am looking forward to promoting ethnolinguistic diversity and vitality.’

This new rotating professorship has been established to offer renowned academics the opportunity to teach and conduct research on international children's rights, while at the same time unlocking knowledge that has been acquired worldwide on children's rights.

Two Leiden University science communication projects have been awarded a WECOM grant through the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA). One project is a study of the history of the deaf community in the Netherlands and the other is of a condition that causes people to lose their way.

A new study published in Archaeometry describes the unexpected results obtained from analyses of five human teeth discovered in a ritual cache at an enslaved African plantation site on the island of Saba in the Caribbean.

As Professor of African Linguistics, Nancy Kula increases our knowledge of variation across languages. Her inaugural lecture is on Monday 23 March.

From 6-8 April 2026 the conference

Seminar

Vasiliki Kosta spoke at the Magna Charta Universitatum Observatory webinar on ‘The roots of academic freedom – underlying values and human rights perspectives’ on 16 February 2023.

The International Court of Justice has issued an interim ruling calling on Israel to take immediate action to prevent genocide. South Africa had accused Israel of violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention, which both countries are a party to. Professor of Public International Law Larissa…

Dennis Braekmans receives funding from the Byvanckfonds for the research

A team of students from the Advanced LL.M. in Air and Space Law represented Leiden University at the Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competition. The European regional rounds of the competition took place at the headquarters of the European Space Agency in Paris, France from 1 to 3 April 2025 and…

Construction work at Casal Lumbroso, on the outskirts of Rome, led to the discovery of a fossilised elephant tusk, and soon after, the remains of a 400,000-year-old elephant. A newly published study, led by Enza Spinapolice and Francesca Alhaique uncovered traces showing that early humans had scavenged…

Something that a year ago would have been unthinkable has become a reality on 12 June: Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un sat down together to talk about nuclear disarmament. Can these two hardliners reach agreement in the negotiations? Professor of Korea Studies Remco Breuker is doubtful. 'As it looks now,…

Space, stars, and galaxies. The wonders of the universe can be captivating and studying them is helping us unravel their mysteries. This edition of 'Learning World' looks at some projects that are offering classroom experiences that are truly out of this world.

The volume, Heritage Destruction, Human Rights and International Law, co-edited by Grotius Centre, Associate Professor Joe Powderly, and Dr Amy Strecker (Associate Professor, UCD), has been published by Brill/Nijhoff.

On 8 March 2021, International Women’s Day, Vanessa Newby was a panelist at the online discussion ‘Breaking Barriers – Women in Peacekeeping’, organized by A4P WPS Champions Ireland, Germany, South Africa and Bangladesh together with UNSCR 1325 architect, Namibia.

Professor Julia Sloth-Nielsen has received an A-rating from the National Research Foundation in South Africa, where she holds a Chair in Public Law at the University of the Western Cape.

On Thursday 18 December, 170 first-year pupils from Gymnasium Haganum visited Leiden University’s Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA) in The Hague. The faculty has developed The Great Migration Game (Het grote Migratiespel) as a fun way to introduce pre-university pupils to its fields of…

On 18 July 2018 former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela would have been 100 years old. In 1999 the anti-apartheid activist received an honorary doctorate from Leiden University. His response was modest: 'This is not a personal achievement. It is a tribute to all those who were involved in the…

It gives us great pleasure to report that the search for a University Lecturer in Christianity in the Modern World has resulted in the appointment of Corey Williams, starting January 2015.

At an extraordinary summit held in the Ghanaian capital of Accra, the ECOWAS states have decided to impose a string of economic, financial and diplomatic measures against Mali.

The University of Groningen is looking for an assistant professor in Medieval history for 1,0 FTE. Deadline for applications, 23 March 2025.

Dr. Josephine Joordens, post-doctoral researcher of the Human Origins Group, has been awarded a grant of EUR 15.000 to conduct fieldwork in the Turkana Basin, “the cradle of mankind”, in Kenya.

Stephanie Rap and Julia Sloth-Nielsen have presented at the International Symposium on Social Work in Juvenile Justice in Beijing, from 27-28 October 2018.

Aleydis Nissen, one of our colleagues from Belgium, created a feature article with photos for Knack magazine (Roularta Media Group). The Pascal Decroos Fund sponsored this article.

Three researchers at LUCL have been awarded a VENI-grant by NWO.

NVIC is delighted to host Dr. Younous Arbaoui from the Amsterdam Centre for Migration and Refugee Law of the VU University Amsterdam as our NWIB Visiting Professor during three months this Spring.

The Hay Festival brings readers and writers together to share stories and ideas in sustainable events around the world. The festivals inspire, examine and entertain, inviting participants to imagine the world as it is and as it might be.

The advanced LL.M. programme on international children’s rights was inaugurated Monday August 31st, 2015 at the Leiden Law School, with students from countries as diverse as South Africa, Iceland, France, Israel, Belgium, Romania, Japan and Jordan.

After a year of hard work, the first class of students from the Master of Laws: Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights received their well-deserved master diplomas on Monday 29 August.

The Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court competition was held in Vienna between 8 and 12 April 2024. This event was organised by the European Centre for Space Law in collaboration with the University of Vienna. The team comprised David Eagleson, Solène Flambeaux and Aleksandra Spyra, current students…

In the presence of their families and friends, the thesis supervisors personally addressed each of the students and presented them with their well-deserved master diploma in the Academy Building’s Klein Auditorium.

Buried beneath a Suffolk forest, archaeologists have uncovered the earliest known human-made fire. A fire that was sparked 400,000 years ago. This stunning UK discovery may rewrite our evolutionary story, potentially pushing fire-making back by more than 350,000 years.

A newly opened museum in China appears to be devoted to the origins of the Austronesian-speaking peoples, who some 5000 years ago spread from East Asia across the Pacific, seeding it with a distinctive culture and some 1200 languages. But those displays are also a statement in the long-running dispute…

On 30 November 2023, Florian Theissen successfully defended his PhD thesis, 'Sincerely Believing in Freedom'.

Between 7 and 11 August, Freya Baetens gave three presentations at the 77th International Law Association (ILA) Biennial Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, on the theme of 'International Law and State Practice: Is there a North/South Divide?'

Call for Papers: Imperial Artefacts. History, Law, and the Looting of Cultural Property