Dr Claire Achmad has taken up the role of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Chief Children’s Commissioner from 1 November 2023, for a term of five years.

In the controlled, censored, and taboo-ridden media landscape of communist China, one would not expect seeing a television show featuring real people having actual conflicts. Yet reality programmes about conflict mediation are mushrooming in the People’s Republic. Both the public and the authorities…

This book, written by two representatives of Leiden Law School, describes the framework of the European Insolvency Regulation (recast) (‘EIR Recast’), in force since June 2017.

With his knowledge of medicine and his decisive action, Leiden professor Sebald Justinus Brugmans saved the lives of many wounded soldiers after the Battle of Waterloo, on 18 June 2015 exactly 200 years ago.

The European Commission adopted a proposal regarding common rules promoting the right to repair for consumers.

Researchers from Leiden University, McMaster University and Public Health Ontario are calling on colleagues to track down archival specimens of mosquitoes from museums and other collections and to examine them with modern methods. This will tell them more about malaria transmission.

On 24 September the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) in Leiden will launch the new version of the Pesticides Atlas in cooperation with Rijkswaterstaat and Royal HaskoningDHV. The online tool is now faster, more user-friendly, more accessible and all data can be downloaded directly. Users can…

The International Institute of Air and Space Law was delighted to host the 14th edition of the Leiden-Sarin International Air Law Moot Court Competition – for the first time – in Leiden! After three years of online mooting owing to the pandemic, this year’s competition was held again in person.

NWO (the Dutch Research Council) has granted more than 10 million euros for five human-centered AI research projects (2.1M€ each). Leiden University participates in two of these five research proposals, which are called ELSA labs.

In the course ‘Research Design CSM’ Dr. Elke Devroe and Moniek Akerboom organized this year a competitive research conference where students of the Master Crisis and Security Management (CSM) presented their research design in order to gain some (fictive) funding on their proposal.

The extension of the Dutch government’s Covid-19 relief measures for businesses has ensured that in the last six months of 2020 the number of bankruptcies was at an all-time low. However, according to the Bijzonder Beheer Barometer (special risk management barometer) an initiative of PwC and the Department…

Dr. Joana Cook and Dr. Graig Klein, assistant professors at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs of Leiden University, have been awarded a Google Trust & Safety Research Award for their project Countering Violent Extremist Content Online: A Multidisciplinary Approach.

Researchers at Leiden University led by Mario van der Stelt (Leiden Institute for Chemistry) have set ‘gold standards’ for developing new painkillers based on the medicinal effects of cannabis. Publication in Nature Communications.

The Sustainability Monitor 2024 reveals that Leiden University has again taken significant steps to become a more sustainable and future-proof university. Since 1990, its carbon emissions have decreased by 50 per cent and, compared with 2019, its natural gas consumption has dropped by 32 per cent. Its…

11th CREAN Children’s Rights Research PhD Symposium

In 2022, for one year, Leiden will be European City of Science. For humanities scholars, this offers enormous opportunities to bring their work to the attention of citizens. Rob Zwijnenberg, chairman of the steering committee that coordinates the faculty's contributions, talks about these opportunit…

The SENSYN project has found a solution to few public datasets for criminological research: synthetic datasets. Marieke Liem talks about this unique innovation

Leiden University celebrates its 444th anniversary in 2019, and a special age requires a special logo. The logo for the celebration was designed by Clara Lezla, a student at the Royal Academy of Art The Hague.

Leiden Law School takes great pride in announcing that the University of Strathclyde has bestowed an honorary doctorate on Professor Ann Skelton, Professor of Children's Rights in a Sustainable World at Leiden Law School and Chair of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. This prestigious…

When a child is placed in care, the assumption is always that the child can return home again. But there are still many questions about how this process – the 'permanency plan' – is arranged. New research aims to provide insights.

Together with a group of researchers from TU Delft and Erasmus University, Leiden University have received a seed grant for conducting a project “Perceived Risk of Terrorism and its Implications for (Counter-Terrorism) Communication Strategies”.

The American historian and Japan specialist Carol Gluck is the new Leiden Cleveringa professor for the 2014–2015 academic year. On 26 November 2014 she will give the Cleveringa inaugural lecture, in which she will examine how World War II is commemorated in Asia.

An exhibition at Oude UB takes visitors to the historical Silk Road. Old maps, clothes and jewellery reflect the rich heritage of the cities of Central Asia and their inhabitants.

It was with deep sorrow that we learned of the sudden death of our dear colleague Menno Tuurenhout on 7 December 2020.

Professor David Simchi-Levi of the MIT Sloan School of Management delivered a guest lecture to SBB students enrolled in the Technology and Operations Management course led by Xishu Li, Assistant Professor at Science Based Business. Simchi-Levi’s lecture focused on new approaches he developed at MIT…

Leiden University addresses the UN on children’s rights

The sixth edition of the lecture series Duurzaamheid & Recht was held during the last semester. Once again, it attracted many students.

The Netherlands holds the presidency of the European Union for the coming six months. There are too many urgent issues for the country to spend time on Dutch political hobby horses, says Stefaan Van den Bogaert, Director of the Europa Institute.

Researchers in Bilthoven, The Netherlands, have recently unraveled the defense against whooping cough bacteria in unprecedented detail. The outcome of the project, conducted at Intravacc (Institute for Translational Vaccinology) in Bilthoven, provides opportunities for a new approach in the development…

The lecture series “Humanity in the Automated State” held its second session on January 12, 2026, at Leiden Law School. Dr. Aya Rizk from Linköping University brought her expertise on Information Systems whit a focus on how digital technologies and data drive organizational change, particularly in decision-making…

The winner of this year’s Jaap Doek Children’s Rights Thesis Award wants to raise more awareness for children who have a parent in detention: ‘It’s time we stop looking the other way and actually think about the impact.’

Starting this semester, Urban Studies students will be able to work on the urban development of the municipality of The Hague. A LUF incentive grant will enable them to put their knowledge into practice even more effectively. At the same time, a study will be started on the optimal use of urban spac…

The lecture series

Jonathan Todres appointed as Rotating Honorary Chair in Enforcement of Children’s Rights 2024/2025

On 11 February 2019 the Women in International Law Network, established in 2017 as an informal network for midlevel to senior female officials, experts, advisers and academics working in international law in the Netherlands, organised a panel discussion and the book launch of ‘Frontex and Human Rights’,…

There are times when an insolvency practitioner has to weigh his role in administering bankrupt estates. This was the message of Professor Reinout Vriesendorp's inaugural lecture that took place on 24 June 2016. According to Statistics Netherlands, 5,271 companies were declared bankrupt in 2015.…

Gisela Hirschmann, lecturer and researcher at Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science, has been awarded a 2-year grant of € 170.000 by the German Fritz Thyssen Foundation to study how international organisations react to budget cuts, membership withdrawals and systematic non-compliance by…

On 2 March 2020 the report Kind in proces: van communicatie naar effectieve participatie (Children in proceedings: from communication towards effective participation) was published. This multidisciplinary research report is the outcome of an inspiring collaboration between various departments at Leiden…

Leiden University’s Executive Board (CvB) visited Leiden University College in The Hague on Friday 11 November during a working visit tour past the Institutes of the Faculty Governance and Global Affairs. Hester Bijl and Martijn Ridderbos were provided with an overview of the programme, the research,…

New Report Launched by ACPF with the support of the Department of Child Law and Health Law

Leiden Law School and the Center for Constitutional Studies of the Mexican Supreme Court (CEC-SCJN) have signed a memorandum of understanding, to carry out joint activities in the field of constitutional law and children's rights.

University lecturer Steven Lauritano has been awarded a Comenius Teaching Fellow grant. Lauritano will use the grant of 50,000 euros to improve hybrid education in classes featuring particular objects.

Nobody likes it, but we do need bureaucracy, is Sandra Groeneveld's message in her inaugural lecture. Her advice is that we just need to handle it differently and should invest in people's behaviour, rather than focusing on strict rules.

LUC has the best professors of the large university programmes in The Netherlands. Sharing the first place with University College Maastricht with 90/100 points, LUC scores significantly better than all other programmes. This year, next to the general Dutch university ranking, weekly magazine Elsevier…

For a month long, the Senate Chamber of Leiden University was reserved for portraits of women. The work of art showing a hundred unique portraits of female professors has now been put into storage, but the board of the University is taking measures to promote the image of women in science.

On Tuesday 6 September, the faculty year 2022-2023 got off to a great start with Leiden Law Op 1, our yearly talkshow live from the Kamerlingh Onnes Gebouw. Together with the Faculty Board, academic staff and students, we looked ahead to the upcoming academic year.

Professor Ann Skelton has been elected as Chairperson of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

The Faculty of Archaeology used to be involved in several excavations in Syria, before the outbreak of civil war made travel to the region impossible. One of these excavations is the one of tell Hammam al-Turkman, which started in 1981. Student Ruben Hartman, together with archaeologist Dr Diederik…

Mozambican politician and child rights activist Graça Machel will receive an honorary doctorate from Leiden University for her commitment to the rights of women and children in Africa and elsewhere. She will be awarded the honorary doctorate on the Dies Natalis, the University’s foundation day, on 8…