At the end of April 2023, two new Editors joined the Editorial Board of Common Market Law Review: Eleanor Spaventa from Bocconi University and Sara Iglesias Sánchez from Complutense University of Madrid. On this occasion, the Editorial Board held its regular Editorial Board meeting in Milan, Italy.…

December 2020 saw the crowning publication of the Landscapes of Survival project by Professor Peter Akkermans. Its main topic is human habitation in marginal environments like the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. ‘The people living here built their own society, and they would not have viewed it as…

From receiving our salary to doing our shopping: we are completely dependent on commercial banks for all our payment transactions. But what happens if they collapse? In his inaugural lecture, Professor Bart Joosen calls for a rigorous change: ‘Put payment transactions for private clients under one…

Tackling key challenges of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry to aid drug discovery is one of the focus areas of Leiden University. To this end, the Leiden Early Drug Discovery & Development network (LED3) was established by the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC), the Institute of Biology Leiden…

War and peace studies. A topic that is more relevant than ever because of the war in Ukraine. In September, the MSc Crisis and Security Management (CSM) will start a new track: War and Peace Studies. CSM’s Programme Director, Ernst Dijxhoorn, discusses the new track, how it was created and what students…

New results from the Kilo-Degree Survey (KiDS) show that the Universe is almost 10 percent more homogeneous than previously thought. The new KiDS map was created using the partly Dutch OmegaCAM on ESO's VLT Survey Telescope on Cerro Paranal in Northern Chile. An international team of astronomers from,…

Five of the new Medical Delta professors who now hold an appointment at multiple institutions are affiliated with Leiden University/LUMC. They are psychologist Andrea Evers and four LUMC professors.

Transdisciplinary education, in which students work with external parties, is getting more popular. How do you start such a programme as a teacher? The Honours Academy and the Leiden Learning Innovation Centre have written a guide for all Leiden colleagues.

It has only recently been discovered that single-celled organisms (bacteria and archaea) also have histones—proteins that structure DNA. Now, Leiden PhD candidate Samuel Schwab has found that the histones in these organisms are much more diverse than previously thought. Schwab and his colleagues describe…

In March, Jan Pronk starts as the new Executive Director at the Faculty of Archaeology. We sat down with him for an interview on his background, his drive, and his take on archaeology.

On Tuesday 12 January 2021, the annual Meijers prizes and thesis prizes were awarded at the online New Year’s event broadcast from the Old Observatory.

More exercise, a healthier diet, more time to yourself: we make resolutions every year, but they often don't make it past the end of January. To help you succeed this year, we have compiled a list of New Year's resolutions you can put into practice at the University!

Giles Scott-Smith is the new dean of LUC (Leiden University College) in The Hague. He succeeds Judi Mesman and starts on 1 July. Scott-Smith: ‘Joining LUC as Dean is a serious honour, and I follow in the footsteps of three Deans who I respect and admire.’

Yusen Yu wins the prestigious Graduate Student Prize of the Middle East Medievalists (MEM) with his article

Native women are invisible in Mexican society. This is the conclusion Barbara Ortiz draws in her dissertation. PhD defence on 23 February.

For her internship at the Textile Museum, master's student Evi van Stiphout researched the Surinamese cloths of the Leiden Cotton Company. Leiden and Suriname have a closer relationship than many people think. ‘Not much is written about Suriname’.

The Austria Centre is pleased to welcome Dr. Lena Sadovski as a visiting scholar who will do research at Leiden University for a few months in 2023. We asked Dr. Sadovski a few questions about her doctoral work, her future research and what she wants to achieve during her time at Leiden.

Ten Leiden museums and heritage institutions have curated the online exhibition ‘Carel’s Universe’. They selected objects from their collections that symbolise retiring Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker and the research in Leiden. With direct references, playful associations and the odd nod and wink.

As Scaliger professor, Erik Kwakkel is responsible for the academic context of the complete Special Collections of the Leiden University Library. His inaugural lecture on 15 May will focus mainly on the section closest to his heart: Medieval books.

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.

When we talk about the Kingdom of the Netherlands, it is not just about the Netherlands. On the contrary: our Kingdom consists of no less than four countries, three of which are Caribbean islands. This structure is complex, to say the least. Although all countries are officially equivalent, in practice…

For more than 35 years they helped put American Studies on the map: Joke Kardux and Eduard van de Bilt. This spring, the couple retired. A farewell interview.

The first biennial symposium Environmental History in the Medieval and Early Modern Low Countries is scheduled for October 25 and 26, 2024. This event aims to facilitate the exchange of recent research, ongoing projects, and key discussions within the realm of environmental history among scholars from…

This Justice for Children Call to Action offers a new starting point to place children at the heart of an emerging global movement for justice. It strives to ensure that, in collective efforts to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, no child is left behind.

On 2 June, Prof. Mayke Kaag gave a keynote speech at the UN Headquarters in New York. The meeting was organised by the UN’s Security Sector Reform & Governance Unit.

The environment also benefits when people follow national nutritional guidelines, Paul Behrens demonstrated in research published in PNAS. The publication attracted media attention both at home and internationally.

Dr Peter Siegel, Associate Professor in Anthropology from Montclair State University, New York, has obtained a Fulbright Scholarship to participate in research and teaching in the Caribbean Research Group for four months. Dr Siegel will be a visiting fellow in the faculty from February to May 2012.

Political scientist Gisela Hirschmann (Leiden University) has been awarded a fellowship at Harvard University. During the 2020 Spring semester she will join the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs to further her research on multilateralism.

The United Nations fall short in their recently published guide to address hunger without surpassing the 1.5-degree climate threshold. This initial version is a significant step, according to a group of researchers including those of Leiden University. However, they miss an essential topic: reducing…

In two moving articles, Dutch newspaper Trouw has reported on the lengthy detention of Abu Zubaydah in Guantánamo Bay. Zubaydah was tortured over a period of many years. Helen Duffy, Professor of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, and also Zubaydah’s lawyer, recently booked a major victory…

The Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) recently received a grant from the German Ministry of Defence to advice on how to strengthen Germany’s approaches to the protection of civilians in UN peace operations.

Dr. Alanna O’Malley, from the Institute for History, has been awarded a research grant of €12,000 from the Gerda Henkel Foundation, based in Dusseldorf, Germany. The Foundation supports scientific projects in the field of humanities that have a specialist scope and are limited in time. Dr. O’Malley’s…

Grabovski spoke in various media on the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January 2022.

Katharina Natter of the Institute of Political Science has been awarded the 2025 IMR Book Review Award for her book on migration politics in Morocco and Tunisia.

Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijn, PhD candidate at ISGA, explained the dilemma countries face in the aftermath of terror attacks.

Shuai Guo, PhD candidate at Company Law and the Hazelhoff Centre for Financial Law, has been awarded the Silver Medal in the competition of the International Insolvency Institute (III) 2018 Prize in International Insolvency Studies. III is a non-profit, limited membership organization dedicated to advancing…

Nico Schrijver and Niels Blokker (Grotius Centre, Public International Law) organised a seminar on the role of non-permanent members of the UN Security Council on 11 and 12 May. The seminar was held with the involvement of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as the Netherlands will be a member of…

A study by an international group of scientists headed by Prof. Michael Richardson showed that asymmetry in the snake lungs manifests itself early in development.

Marjo de Graauw, adviser Educational Innovation and Academic Teacher at Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences has won the Turnitin GLobal Innovator Award for Europe.

Having a drink in a cafe and at the same time learning something about astronomy: this is Astronomy on Tap. The first edition in Leiden will take place on Monday 27 March.

In a study led by Leiden alumnus Jan Dekker, based on his research master’s thesis, he applied Mass Spectrometry Imaging to archaeological human teeth. The research shows that there are large differences in the intensity of proteins across the teeth, opening new avenues of investigation.

On 12 May, Joachim Koops, Professor of Security Studies and Scientific Director of the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA), was invited to brief the United Nations Department of Peace Operations in New York on the situation in Ukraine, options for the protection of civilians and lessons…

We are delighted to welcome Dr. Barrie Sander as Visiting Fellow of The Hague Program for Cyber Norms at Leiden University’s Institute of Security and Global Affairs from 27 September till 4 October 2017.

Arco Timmermans, Professor by special appointment Public Affairs, discusses the lobby that is just getting under way and is aimed at the political parties' manifestos for the upcoming election in March 2021.

For students who want to be an intermediary between scientific experts, policy makers and politicians in the domain of sustainability, the master programme Governance of Sustainabiliy might be just what they are looking for. Leiden University intends to start this new The Hague based programme in September…

A marathon session took place in Brussels from Sunday 30 June to Monday 1 July to decide who would become the new President of the European Commission. Arco Timmermans, Professor by special appointment Public Affairs at the Institute of Public Administration at Leiden University, appeared as a guest…

In recent days and weeks, experts have been falling over themselves to point the finger at the main culprit in the Dutch child benefits scandal. Although this debate is fascinating, equally important are the broader lessons to be drawn from the scandal in relation to constitutional and administrative…

Back in 2021, the project Streaming the Past, an NWA funded project ran by Leiden University and the VALUE Foundation, launched to take a young audience back to the past through video games on the popular streaming platform Twitch. Now, the project is lauded with a DEN Award, issued by the organisation…

On 10 December 2024, the European Parliament played host to an insightful presentation of ‘Protecting Democracy in Europe: Pluralism, Autocracy, and the Future of the EU’, the new book by Tom Theuns, Assistant Professor at Leiden University. Hosted by MEP Thijs Reuten (PvdA/S&D) and his team, the event…

Technological developments never stop. Machines can already perform many tasks and in the future they will probably take over even more of the work we do. Which jobs could disappear and which will remain in the future? Olaf van Vliet, Professor of Economics at Leiden Law School, commented on these issues…