The International Day of Light (IDL) celebrates the ubiquitous role light has in our lives. From Argentina to South Africa, Japan and Pakistan, several events have taken place across all continents on May 16. The date is a token for people around the globe to connect with the importance of light in…

Are you keen to immerse yourself in a new culture, broaden your horizons and make friends for life? If so, come to the Study Abroad Festival on Friday afternoon 14 October.

This masterclass examines the idea of disegno in relation to the early modern decorative arts by investigating the collection of Italian design drawings in the Rijksmuseum. Meaning both design and drawing, disegno was a fundamental concept in the development of artistic theory in early modern Europe…

Leiden University is expanding its educational offering in The Hague with two Dutch-taught bachelor's programmes: Economie & Samenleving and Cybersecurity & Cybercrime. These programmes address current societal issues and provide students with the opportunity to combine different disciplines to solve…

2024 was an eventful year for the Faculty of Humanities. Despite becoming the centre of political discussion and budget cuts as faculty ourselves, exceptional research projects were carried out and new initiatives were launched.

On Monday 10 December, the Polish Commissioner for Human Rights dr. Adam Bodnar delivered the eighth Raymond and Beverly Sackler Distinguished Lecture on Human Rights at Leiden Law School. The event marked the annual celebration of International Human Rights Day, which was proclaimed to commemorate…

Meticulous analysis of hundreds of photographic plates from the star J1407 between 1890 and 2007 show no stellar eclipses. Robin Mentel, a master student at Leiden University, could not detect eclipses of the star J1407 by a planet hypothesized to have giant rings, called J1407b. However, an eclipse…

Elif Naz Kayran and Anna-Lena Nadler have received the European Political Science Review (EPSR) Prize for early career scholars.

Archaeologist Victor Klinkenberg examined an old Assyrian settlement in Syria, near to the IS stronghold Raqqa. 'Social life was more important than military life.' PhD defence 27 October.

Diana Dávila Gordillo, PhD candidate at Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science does field trips to her native Ecuador.

Thousands of curious students and parents are visiting the Open Day on 5 March. How do they get a good idea of the study programmes and the city?

Advanced Summer School on the European Union and the United Nations in The Hague. Explore global governance, EU–UN cooperation, simulations and institutional visits. Apply by 22 May 2026.

Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) master's students delved into the relationships between humans and the environment in the landscape of lowland, coastal and riparian/swamp areas of East Kalimantan. Through an intensive two-week Thesis-Lab program titled “Sustainable Urbanism in East Kalimantan”, LDE and Universitas…

Boudewijn Röell's Olympic medal, an ancient skiff and photo's of memorable rituals. Asopos de Vliet - Princess Beatrix was a member - is celebrating its 55th anniversary with an exhibition in the Oude UB, from 1 November to 26 January.

University lecturer Dario Fazzi and postdoctoral researcher Gaetano Di Tommaso set up a virtual collaboration with the United States last year thanks to a VIS grant. And it was a such a success the project will be repeated next year. Fazzi is looking forward to once again offering his students a multicultural…

Last week Hanneke Bennaars and Yvonne Erkens visited the World Congress of the International Society for Labour and Social Security Law (ISLSSL) which was held from 4 to 7 September 2018 in Turin, Italy. The theme of the congress was “Transformations of Work: Challenges for the National Systems…

Every year, the DIKTI-Leiden Fellowship programme offers three senior (postdoc) researchers affiliated with a state or private university in Indonesia the opportunity to conduct three months of research in the Leiden University Libraries (UBL) Special Collections.

Last September Henk Borgdorff participated in the art and research funding expert meeting of funding agencies initiated by the Society for Artistic Research (SAR).

This course in ethics is a continuation of the popular Nationale AI-Cursus from 2018. In which over 300,000 people have since participated.

Rogier Kegge, Assistant Professor in administrative law and environmental law, is a member of the Dutch Health Council’s Committee on Livestock Farming and Health. The Committee recently published a report on links between goat farms and pneumonia.

ILS organizes a new lunch seminar series where all researchers from Leiden Law School can present their research. The idea is to hear in a simple and nice way what researchers from other research programs and institutes are working on. During a seminar two or three speakers will present their research.…

This week the good news broke as the Egyptian authorities have given their permission to continue the excavations in Saqqara in 2019!

Monika Baár received a two-month residential fellowship by the Brocher Foundation, an organization located in Hermance (near Geneva) which supports research in the medical humanities.

This new Casebook features the work of an international, interdisciplinary research group entitled ‘The Joust as Performance: Pas d’armes and Late Medieval Chivalry’.

On 15 May the new website about the research programme Digital Society has been launched.

Daniel Leech-Wilkinson introduces a series of podcasts based on his book Classical Performance Norms and How to Escape Them.

The Skandapurāṇa Project considers fieldwork to be essential to the study of purāṇic religious topography and the understanding of the socio-political milieu in which the Skandapurāṇa was composed and disseminated.

On 9 and 10 November 2017 the thematic group of LERU Law Deans met at Leiden Law School to discuss developments in the field and collaborations between the partner universities. The meeting was organised jointly with Utrecht Law School.

The annual excursion of the Adv. LLM programme in European and International Human Rights Law (EIHRL) took place from Sunday 16 to Saturday 21 April.

The newly opened Culture Arcade exhibition is a place where cultural heritage and video games come together. It is co-organized and curated by the VALUE Foundation of which Faculty staff members Aris Politopoulos and Csilla Ariese-Vandemeulebroucke are part of, together with the Prince Claus Fund.

English Language and Culture lecturer Mili Gabrovšek has won the Education Award 2015. In the report, the jury praised Gabrovšek's humor and enthusiasm. Each year the award is presented to the most inspiring lecturer of the faculty at the opening of the academic year.

Representatives from the Leiden University Alumni Association in Indonesia (IKALI) were honored to have a discussion with Dutch Prime Minister H.E. Mark Rutte during his visit to Jakarta on 7 October 2019.

We are delighted to announce that the funding of the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Islam and Society (LUCIS) will be continued from 2018 until 2020!

Since 1992, Professor Thijs van Kolfschoten, has been excavating at Schöningen.

NVIC welcomes Dr. Stefanie Van de Peer of Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh as a guest researcher.

On Friday the 29th of October, LACDR presented highlights of its research and teaching program during an online Lunchtime Talk session at the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

On 26 September 2023, Carlotta Rigotti was invited to give a talk on the regulatory impact of the AI Act on AI applications for recruitment and selection, during the AI Lund Fika-to-Fika Workshop on Regulating High Risk AI in the EU.

On 2 December, Roel Becker and Joyce Esser, both PhD candidates at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law, gave a lecture for their colleagues and the students of Res Publica, the master’s association Constitutional and Administrative Law. In the lecture, they paid attention to the…

Natashe Lemos Dekker has been awarded the Distinguished Women Scientists Fund 2021. This travel grant for female postdocs allows her to spend a period as a visiting fellow at the UCLA Department of Anthropology in the United States.

On 27 February, Rodrigo Pica, Secretary of Chile’s Constitutional Court, gave a lecture to the students of the Advanced Master’s in European and International Human Rights Law at Leiden Law School.

Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) in Leiden is a unique interdisciplinary master’s programme, considering topics of freedom, justice and citizenship in the 21st century. Watch this video to learn more about the programme!

In what ways and to which extent are the systems of national administrative law becoming Europeanised? What role do EU legal principles play in this process? Are EU legal principles smoothly absorbed in national law and practice, or do the principles encounter resistance? Which legal principles attract…

In February Cultural Anthropologist Federico de Musso went to Northern Italy to visit his family. He was there for three days when COVID-19 cases started to skyrocket. Back in the Netherlands, he put himself into preventive quarantine, just in case he had contracted the disease. It turned out he did…

The Leiden University Labour Law Department started a new cooperation with the Law School of the China University of Labor Relations in Beijing. The agreement was signed by Dean prof. Jiang Ying during the visit of her delegation on 19 September 2019 in Leiden. Also Vice-Dean prof. Li Wenpei and Lecturer…

Laura Groen, MSc student at LACDR’s division of medicinal chemistry, has been elected to attend the Science and Technology Leadership Assocation (STeLA) forum.

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…

Fenneke Sysling has recently launched a podcast: Het Gemeten Zelf (in Dutch). This five-part podcast series explores the history of self-tracking.

BrainTrain: an initiative from Leiden University in which a team of students visit high schools to make adolescents more resilient against disinformation on the news and on their socials. In an interactive two-hour guest lesson, high school pupils discover how easily their brains can be tricked into…

On 19 June, Jorrit Rijpma spoke at the international conference on the Constitutional Foundations of EU Migration law at Konstanz University.

The Leiden Ranking is much more than a simple list!