Diplomatica addresses the broad range of work being done across the social sciences and the humanities that takes diplomacy as its focus of investigation. The journal explores and investigates diplomacy as an extension of social interests, forces, and environments.

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.

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.

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.’

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.

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…

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…

Jan Joosten studied civil and tax law in Leiden from 1985. After exchanges and an internship, he became infatuated with the United States. He is now a partner and co-founder of a new law firm in New York: Pierson Ferdinand.

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…

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 fifteen years, Recep Uysal carried out research on positive psychology in Turkey; it is even the subject of his PhD. That was until he had to flee Turkey and start again from scratch in the Netherlands. Re-entering the academic world was a challenge, but he rediscovered his love for the field in…

How does gender of public leaders relate to employees’ satisfaction with the leadership of their direct supervisor? In the online Leiden Leadership Lunch on Friday September 24, Dr. Max van Lent (Assistant Professor of Economics) presented the results of his recent research on the differences between…

Graduation ceremony

Op 13 June the Leiden Leadership Centre hosted a workshop following the research project on ‘werken volgens de bedoeling’ at the Municipality of The Hague and the SVB.

The Leiden University team won second place in the highly competitive Dutch National Rounds of the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition in Amsterdam in February 2023. The team did well in both the written and oral segments of the competition, and Marleen Onnekes was awarded the…

What do the election results say about the Netherlands today? Students and experts discussed this at an Election Breakfast organised by study association Diqit. Analysts, including Hans-Martien ten Napel, Associate Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, notice a new dividing line in Dutch…

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…

Leiden Professor of Molecular astrophysics Ewine van Dishoeck has been awarded an Advanced Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). She has been awarded 2.3 million euros in research funding for the MOLDISK programme. Within this programme, Van Dishoeck wants to connect chemistry and physics in…

From 25 May, a new European privacy law will apply. Companies and authorities must deal with personal data in a clearer and safer manner. Bibi van den Berg, Professor of Cyber Security Governance at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA), tells in Nu.nl what the law entails and about the…

Last week an audit committee from the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (NVAO) visited the Wijnhaven building at Campus The Hague to review the proposed new English-taught master’s degree programme ‘Law & Society: Governance and Global Development’.

The Netherlands has gained a third commentary on the Constitution – with Leiden as its home base. The first copy of Een nieuw commentaar op de Grondwet (A new commentary on the Constitution) (published by Boom Amsterdam) was presented to Prime Minister Mark Rutte in the Torentje last week.

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…

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…

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…

Professor P.F. (Paul) Wouters has been appointed dean of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences with effect from 1 January 2019. Wouters has been appointed for a period of three years and succeeds Professor Hanna Swaab, whose second term of office as dean expires this year. Swaab will remain…

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…

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…

What is the history of plastic packaging in human society?

Ever wondered how big the food waste problem really is?

Marcel Cobussen on

This September a new Masters Track

The Villa Son Sard archaeological project aims to determine the boundaries of the Roman and post-Roman villa at Son Sard on Mallorca. While the team was excavating in the summer of 2023, several news outlets covered the findings.

Joris Larik, university lecturer at LUC, discusses in this interview with Al Jazeera the new trade and cooperation agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom.

The Hazelhoff Centre for Financial Law research programme for 2020-2023 centres around the integrity of financial markets during times of crisis and possible regulation to secure it.

The first congress of the UU Paleohub, 'The Future of Paleography, Paleography of the Future'. 10 april 2025

On 17 March Renate Dekker was awarded the Cardinal Willebrand Prize for her MPhil thesis on 'The Sahidic Encomium of Pesunthios, bishop of Keft: towards a new understanding, based on a recently discovered manuscript.'

The silenced paradoxes of urban renewal.

Contacts between English and Dutch speakers had a profound impact on the literary landscape and book culture of England and the Low Countries. This conference crosses conventional chronological, linguistic, geographical and disciplinary boundaries to explore the cultural history of relations between…

Charles Melville, Professor of Persian History at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Pembroke College, will be the Central Asia Visiting Professor from 20 November until 28 November 2017. Charles Melville will deliver a guest lecture on Thursday, 23 November, co-organized with LUCIS, and a masterclass…

The short documentary film was selected to the short film corner of the Cannes Film Festival.

Skandapurāṇa III presents a critical edition of the Vindhyavāsinī Cycle (Adhyāyas 34.1-61, 53-69) from the Skandapurāṇa , with an introduction and annotated English synopsis.

The Faculty of Religion, Culture and Society of the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen organises a lecture series named 'Religion Matters'. During this series, research from the faculty on various diverse subjects will be presented to a broader audience.

In Augustus 2012 Kim Beerden will join the staff of the Institute for History as lecturer in Ancient History.

Between 10 and 22 August 2025, Institute for Digital Humanities at the University of Göttingen, Germany, organizes its 4th Summer School in Digitital Paleography. Application deadline 30 April 2025

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has awarded Veni funding to four Humanities researchers at Leiden University. One of them is Anna Dlabačová. This award offers promising young scientists the opportunity to develop their own ideas over a period of three years.

Alex Elias, alumnus of the Research Master Linguistics, has won the prestigious Jan Brouwer Thesis Award for his thesis. Elias, who is currently working as a PhD-student at UC Berkeley, wrote his thesis under supervision of prof. dr. Marian Klamer.

The scientific world is a competitive place. Even so, researchers are often prepared to share their findings with colleagues. This applies particularly to men as a group: women are much less willing to share their work, whether it is with other women or with men. This discovery was made by Leiden and…

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