The Dies Natalis for alumni on 11 February was an online event. Almost 1,000 alumni tuned in to Bastiaan Rijpkema’s interview with Annetje Ottow, who had then been President of Leiden University’s Executive Board for all of three days. Alumni are part of her portfolio on the Executive Board.

The number of insect species is plummeting, which is why the University is creating a more biodiverse environment around its buildings. Annetje Ottow, President of the Executive Board, planted the first bee-friendly plants in the front garden of Oude UB on 20 September.

Dutch universities have responded positively to the new coalition plans. Investments in education, research and innovation will be prioritised, and the stringent cutbacks proposed by the previous cabinet will be reversed. Optimism is the order of the day in Leiden, though caution is advised.

‘We could share our knowledge more with others and apply it more widely,’ said Annetje Ottow, President of the Executive Board, while presenting the new Strategic Plan on the University’s 447th Dies Natalis. The new Strategic Plan therefore focuses on innovating and connecting, among disciplines and…

The controversial Disciplinary Chamber of the Polish Supreme Court is one of many other judiciary reforms which the PiS, the Polish nationalist ruling party, carried out since 2015. The Disciplinary Chamber allows for judges to be fined, degraded and discharged. Von der Leyen expects the highest European…

They first entered the Academy Building fifty to sixty years ago. On 28 March, they were back for an afternoon: the members of the Dr Pfiffikus debating society of the German Studies programme. Former chair Hans van der Veen looks back on his student days.

The Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) alliance signed a collaboration agreement with the Indonesian Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Technology on 23 September.

A new book about Villa Isola in Indonesia reveals some of the shared history of the Netherlands and Indonesia. The book was presented on Thursday to Annetje Ottow, President of the Executive Board, and Mr Mayerfas, ambassador of the Republic of Indonesia in the Netherlands.

Annetje Ottow, president of the Executive Board of Leiden University, has been the new chair of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) strategic alliance for just two months. What does she want to achieve during her two-year chairmanship?

The Mapping Slavery project will place markers that tell the story of Leiden’s slavery past. Why is this important and what does it mean for today’s society? Before the markers are placed, a panel came together on 24 March to discuss the slavery past of not only the city but the University too.

Leiden University and four other Dutch universities will appoint 51 PhD candidates to conduct solution-oriented research for and with the African continent.

Information about the situation in Ukraine

The new Japanese Ambassador, Michii Rokuichiro, visited Leiden University on 2 March.

Women in International Security -Netherlands (WIIS-NL) is an affiliate of WIIS Global. WIIS-NL Members include: professionals, civil servants, academics, NGOs, employees of international bodies and organizations, embassy staff, politicians, students, and interested members of the general public. The…

Leiden University's 2017 annual report has now been published. This year for the first time the University has also published a separate sustainability report. Leiden University is the first university to produce a separate report on the progress of its sustainability policies.

Polarisation in our society is on the rise. What makes people increasingly radical? How do we protect ourselves from extremist, terrorist or criminal threats, be they physical or in the cyber world? And what role do intelligence services play in this?

This project sets out to map, document and analyze instances of squatting in Leiden from 1970 to 1990, in order to set up an online Digital Archive of Squatting in Leiden. This archive will function as an online resource for academic research, as well as a starting point for public activities such as…

In this article, Kuipers and Timmermans analyze the first lady's relationship with policy problems in the period 1945-2013.

This Think20 (T20) policy brief recommends the introduction of a

On the occasion of prof Paul van der Heijden’s stepping down as Rector Magnificus and President of the Executive Board of Leiden University in 2013 the Chair bearing his name on Social Justice was established. It was a “farewell present” of the Leiden University to it’s Rector.

School of pharmaceutical sciences, University of Geneva - Switzerland

‘Culture change takes time,’ said Vice-Rector Hester Bijl at the closing panel of the University’s Diversity Symposium on 26 January. She talked about the road to a diverse and inclusive university. The symposium provided plenty of concrete examples of small steps that can already be taken.

The Leiden Centre for Continental Philosophy (LCCP) is a research community based at the Institute for Philosophy at Leiden University. LCCP is envisaged as an open space for stimulating discussion, critical debate and inventive co-operation in the local and international philosophical community. We…

What was the environmental impact of the industrial mining revolution that transformed southern Africa? Specifically, what was the impact of industrial mining when viewed from a more than human multi-species perspective?

Conference

Leiden University is publishing a list giving an overview of its research collaborations with the fossil fuel industry.

This timely and engaging book examines the rise of populism across the globe. Combining insights from linguistics, argumentation theory, rhetoric, legal theory and political theory it offers a fully integrated characterization of the form and content of populist discourse.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), often referred to as drones, have become easy and inexpensive to buy, and it is generally expected that the use of drones by private individuals, businesses and public authorities will increase tremendously in the coming years. This raises questions as to what is technologically…

Announcement of the publication of Vamping the Stage: Female Voices of Asian Modernities, the first book-length study of women, modernity, and popular music in Asia (University of Hawai'i Press, 2017).

Global Challenges is the research programme of the Leiden Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology.

Fundamental research in the ALgebra, Geometry And Number Theory

EuDEco (Modelling the European Data Economy) is a Coordination & Support Action (CSA) receiving funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme.

The authors in this volume explore how external innovations (products, technologies, services, institutions and processes) have been appropriated in African societies in order to be acceptable and relevant to local conditions, expectations and demands.

Pottery traditions and social interaction in the earliest Neolithic of the Lower Rhine Area

This paper contributes on an increasing body of work on radicalisation. It specifically focuses on what distinguishes individuals whose behavioural radicalisation includes involvement in terrorist violence from those whose behavioural radicalisation does not.

Source: Nat Biotechnol, Volume 32, Issue 12, pp. 1213-22 (2014)

Sweetie 2.0 is a research project commissioned by Terre des Hommes on online child sex tourism and criminal law.

The Turn of the Soul: Representations of Religious Conversion in Early Modern Art and Literature

Together with Knud Andresen, Bart van der Steen recently published a volume titled A European Youth Revolt. European Perspectives on Youth Protest and Social Movements in the 1980s.

This article presents an in-depth evaluation of a specialized reintegration initiative within the Dutch Probation Service focused on individuals convicted or suspected of involvement in terrorism.

Transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) was tested in chronic worriers. tVNS may reduce spontaneously occurring negative thought intrusions. After a worry induction, there was no longer an effect of tVNS. tVNS did not affect physiological responding to worrying.

Source: Eur J Med Chem, Volume 101, pp. 681-91 (2015)

Squatters and autonomous movements have been in the forefront of radical politics in Europe for nearly a half-century—from struggles against urban renewal and gentrification, to large-scale peace and environmental campaigns, to spearheading the antiausterity protests sweeping the continent.

In recent years, the use of primary data in terrorism research has increased. In order to maximise the benefits of this trend, we want to encourage terrorism scholars to implement open science practices more systematically. This article therefore presents different avenues towards open and reproducible…

Why does one person radicalize to involvement in terrorist violence within a group-based context, while another engages in this form of violence alone?

From deepfakes and disinformation to killer robots, surgical robots and AI lawmaking: AI (Artificial Intelligence) is changing our world. That raises the question whether this requires some form of regulation. At eLaw, the Center for Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University, prof. Bart Custers…

The book addresses the question “How and why do people become involved in European homegrown jihadism?

In this article, Bart Schuurman and Sarah Louise Carthy conduct further research into the understanding of the causes of terrorism by assessing differences and similarities between left-, right- and jihadist extremists and terrorists. The article draws on the Analysen zum Terrorismus, one of the most…

The institute has six secretariats for the various departments and is located at the Kamerlingh Onnes Gebouw.