Professor Edwin Bakker, director of the Centre for Terrorism & Counterterrorism, released his new book “Terrorism and Counterterrorism Studies: Comparing Theory and Practice”, published by Leiden University Press.

A large new campus square on the Leiden Bio Science Park will be used for a range of activities for students, staff and Leiden residents, a knowledge festival, shows and sporting activities, for instance.

Some sectors have been hard hit by the pandemic, whereas others have grown. Yet there was no influx of workers from shrinking to growing sectors. This is the conclusion of research by economists from Leiden University. They published their results in the journal Economisch Statistische Berichten.

How can we best deal with the current problems caused by the human impact on the nitrogen cycle? How do we make the transition to a sustainable society? As of 1 September, nitrogen expert Jan Willem Erisman will be working on these questions at Leiden University: he will exchange the Louis Bolk Institute…

On Thursday 10 January a number of prizes were presented to researchers and students.

The new Dutch-Turkish dictionary has been completed, just in time for the celebration of 400 years of Dutch-Turkish ties. It would not have been possible without Gerjan van Schaaik and Mehmet Emin Yıldırım from Leiden University. On Wednesday 18 April the Education Minister Marja van Bijsterveldt will…

After an intensive tender procedure, Leiden University and the Municipality of Oegstgeest have chosen Dura Vermeer for a new housing development with plenty of affordable homes in Nieuw Rhijngeest-Zuid. Dura Vermeer seeks to create a green and playful neighbourhood with welcoming public spaces as its…

Why are health problems such as loneliness and obesity so persistent? What causes them to occur more frequently in some neighborhoods than others? And how can we solve them? You will learn about these topics in the new minor 'Co-creating a Healthy Society'.

Liselotta Jahnke, Jason Irwin, Rachel Cruickshank and Paula Kovač are the new student members of the Programme Committee (OLC). This committee advises the Executive Board and the Faculty Board of CADS about educational matters, such as determining the Course and Examination Regulations and evaluating…

PhD candidate Daniël Gomon has developed statistical methods that could significantly improve research in fields like medicine and demography. ‘Mathematicians don’t like unrealistic assumptions,’ he says. Gomon will defend his PhD thesis on 19 June.

A suitcase as a messenger of quantum science. That is the idea behind QuanTour, a project connecting researchers from 12 European universities. In December, the suitcase landed in Leiden. A month later, it is time to pass the baton to Copenhagen. But what happened to it in Leiden?

Tax scandals, like the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers, and the Pandora Papers, have made tax avoidance by large multinationals and rich individuals a major topic of public debate. Policymakers are pushed to close tax loopholes and reform the global tax system. But this is no easy task.

The Kenyan second-hand clothing market is depended upon locally by citizens for its low cost, high quality and diversity. To prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Kenya halted imports of second-hand clothes in late March. Ever since, local manufacturers and designers are looking for solutions and opportunities…

Sarah de Rijcke and Paul Wouters (CWTS) are partners in a new European consortium funded by the Swedisch Riksbankens Jubileumsfond: Knowledge in science and policy.

On 17 October, Armin Cuyvers, associate professor of EU law at Leiden Law School, was a studio guest on the Radio 1 show ‘Een Vandaag’.

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.…

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.

2017 was the Leiden Asia Year. Leiden has had connections with Asia and built up extensive knowledge of the continent over many centuries. This Leiden-Asia link has been in the spotlight for the past year.

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.

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.

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’.

Xiang van der Boon, a third-year Law and Tax Law student, went to Bilbao in 2025 to study at the University of Deusto for five months. She learned a lot about herself: ‘Living abroad showed me it's important to make time to relax.’

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…

The university is home to many pearls of research institutes that do not make the news every day. The Executive Board visited one such pearl, the Institute of Philosophy, on Tuesday 1 July. It resulted in an inspired conversation.

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…

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…

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

How do parents communicate anxiety to their child via body language and words? Psychologist Cosima Nimphy studied this question for her PhD research. Experiments show that children of anxious parents are not more sensitive to their parents’ signs of anxiety.

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…