From 27-29 August, the Conference of the International Society for Child Indicators (ISCI) took place in Tartu (Estonia). Prof. Ton Liefaard was one of the key-note speakers during that conference.

The case note examines the recent inquiry report published by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.

The Executive Board is delighted to announce that Joanne van der Leun took up the position of the university’s Academic Lead International Affairs as of 1 January 2025.

Prof. dr. mr. Maartje van der Woude (Van Vollenhoven Institute) has received funding from the National Police to carry out a phenomenon research on the extent to which, and how, human trafficking and human smuggling are intertwined phenomena in intra-Schengen border areas.

Last week, Professor of Law and Society Maartje van der Woude (Van Vollenhoven Institute) gave a lecture at the Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome.

Maartje van der Woude, Professor of Law and Society, organises the House of Misconceptions on 6 and 26 September 2021, together with art collective Liquid Society.

The judicial authorities are looking into the possibilities for prosecution for the slogans that were projected on the Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam on New Year’s Eve. Not an easy task, according to legal experts. When do we consider something to be ‘discrimination’?

In early January, Joanne van der Leun (Dean of the Leiden Law School), Ton Liefaard (Program Director of the Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights, LL.M), and Anette van Sandwijk (Head Bureau International Education) visited China.

Maartje van der Woude, Professor of Law and Society, has been included in the Leiden Top50 of 2022. The list includes women who stand out because they make a difference in the city. The Top50 was announced on 8 March, International Women’s Day.

In April, the Honours Class 'Law, Power and Inequality: Global Perspectives’ will start. Professor of Law & Society Maartje van der Woude has developed and coordinates this unique class which is innovative both in content and collaboration as in design.

This summer, the COST action

A new website has been designed to make the Leiden Children’s Rights Observatory, which started in 2018, more accessible.

All Leiden alumni, students and anyone else who might be interested is welcome to attend the online Cleveringa Meeting in Leiden on Wednesday 25 November entitled 'The Corrosion of International Relations'.

Since reintegration officer Bart Reedijk started work in Dordrecht three years ago, ex-convicts in that municipality have reoffended a lot less often. There is much interest in Reedijk's method throughout the Netherlands, but experts have reservations.

On 3 March the book “The European Union as an Area of Freedom, Security and Justice” edited by Maria Fletcher, Claudio Matera and Esther Herlin-Karnell was officially presented at a symposium at VU University Amsterdam.

‘Anne Frank inventor of the ballpoint pen’ was the laser message projected onto the Anne Frank House last Monday. It could be viewed on a video shared via Telegram channel ‘The Laser Nazi Bunker’. The suggestion behind the text was that Anne Frank did not write her diary herself.

Our society can no longer not imagine the threat of cybercrime. Banks, companies, and schools are hacked, or 'DDoSed', with increasing regularity and data is being stolen or taken hostage. To respond adequately to this threat, we need more knowledge of the perpetrators.

The rise and fall of the cesspit in an urban context

Dr. Nikki Ikani challenges binary views of intelligence warnings, proposing a multidimensional typology to evaluate warning effectiveness.

The neolithization of the southern Netherlands in an antropological and geographical perspective

On Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, Mr. Seán Ivory (VU) presented part of his prize-winning research in a lunch talk entitled Let Sleeping Dogs Lie: The Politics of Emotion in the Pamphlets of the De Hondt Affair During the Small Brabant Revolution (1787).

In the course 'From Ceramics to Plastics: The Mediterranean in 12 objects' students were taught to work with 3D scanning technologies. One of the underlying reasons to introduce students to this technology was to teach them to reproduce objects. ‘More and more archaeological information is stored in…

New Texts and Studies on Christian Nubian Culture

Course

From the Open Days and Student for a Day events to the option of following Online Experience modules: the university tries to prepare prospective students for their new study programme as well as possible. In this context, the bachelor’s programmes Dutch Language and Culture and English Language and…

Bureaucrats appointed based on merit are not necessarily more professional or autonomous than those who have been, for instance, ‘politically installed’. Furthermore, patronage does not only have negative effects. These are two conclusions reached by Abdul-Nasir Abubakar, PhD candidate at Leiden University’s…

Princess Beatrix was a guest at the opening of the conference on ‘Chinese Buddhism and the Scholarship of Erik Zürcher’ in Leiden on 12 February. Buddhism researchers from all parts of the world came together to reflect on the work of Leiden sinologist Erik Zürcher.

Nature uses a special class of histone proteins, histone variants, to modulate the properties of chromatin at defined genomic locations.

This collection of seventeen essays takes its inspiration from the scholarly achievements of the Dutch historian Jan Lucassen. They reflect a central theme in his research: the history of labor.

Tin electrodeposition applications have rapidly evolved in the past 25 years.

Cytotoxic T-cells (CTLs) are involved in the clearance of viruses and killing of tumor cells.

This project aims to investigate the underlying (neurocognitive) linguistic processes of ellipsis resolution, particularly gapping.

The aim of this project is to investigate the (cost)effectiveness of two innovative forms of trauma-focused therapy for patients with childhood abuse related PTSD. The ultimate goal is to improve quality of care and contribute to treatment innovation for this severely ill target population.

Like a mixture of oil and water, lipid membranes separate into two liquid phases.

Ragazzi, ‘Suspect community or suspect category?‘, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies

In this thesis the combinatorial use of bioorthogonal labelling and Electron Microscopy (EM)-based imaging techniques is explored to enable observations of specific molecular targets in their ultrastructural context within the cell.

This project aims to develop advanced data analysis methods for monitoring and increasing our understanding on biodiversity dynamics in nature reserves such as the Oostvaardersplassen.

Light-Harvesting Complex II (LHCII) is responsible for light absorption and excitation energy transfer in plants and photosynthetic algae, while in high light it undergoes conformational changes by which it quenches excitations to prevent photodamage.

Natashe Lemos Dekker addresses the experiences of family members of people with dementia as they expressed their sense of gradually losing the person with dementia in the article 'Anticipatory Grief in Dementia: An Ethnographic Study of Loss and Connection' published in Culture, Medicine, and Psychi…

Promotor: Prof.dr. R. Verpoorte, , Co-Promotor: Young Hae Choi

Including modelling as part of software development appears to have various benefits.

The demand for neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets is rapidly growing, while the neodymium supply chain is under pressure. Recycling can alleviate these issues. This thesis investigates the potential for deploying novel magnet recycling technologies and their environmental consequences.

Promotor: H.S. Overkleeft, Co-Promotor: B.I. Florea

This thesis focuses on the development of sample-preparation methods for small amounts of samples and applying the developed methods to muscle tissues to investigate the mechanisms involved in sarcopenia.

This thesis is a sample-based typological study of formal and semantic patterns in terms for a selection of referring (

On the 24th of September, Louise S. Friis successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Louise on this achievement!

The aromatic infrared bands (AIBs) seen throughout the interstellar medium (ISM) are generally thought to be carried by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and their nitrogen analogues (PANHs).

Form and Function in Greek Grammar. Linguistic Contributions to the Study of Greek Literature is a new book, written by Albert Rijksbaron. Rijksbaron is internationally known as one of the leading scholars of the Ancient Greek language, whose work has exerted a strong and lasting influence on the scholarly…

The starting hypothesis of the project is that secrecy is not always inimical to democratic governance as conventional wisdom has it.