If you follow the western media, you are likely to think of ‘Africa’ as the continent of origin of desperate migrants, a continent of hunger and disease and a breeding ground for international terrorism. But if you want to see the bigger picture, you should look no further than the African Studies scholars…

Roundtable

Emeritus professor Joke Bouwstra (LACDR) will receive this year's Dr Saal van Zwanenberg Ereprijs: a tribute to her years of fundamental research on the skin and the transport of drugs through the skin. This is the first time the prize has gone to a woman.

On 8-10 July, 2024, public law scholars from around the world gathered in Madrid for the annual conference of the International Society of Public Law – the ICON-S, hosted this year by IE University. The theme of the conference “The Future of Public Law: Resilience, Sustainability, and Artificial Intelligence,”…

An international team of researchers led by Leiden archaeology professor Marie Soressi and Leipzig senior geneticist Matthias Meyer has recovered the DNA of a woman belonging to an Ancient North Eurasian population from a 20,000-year-old pendant. This is the first time DNA analysis has been used to…

The Edisen Foundation has won the 2016 Mr. K.J. Cath prize. This student organisation set up by two Leiden students gives lectures in care homes.

An article by Bert Fraussen, Adria Albareda, Caelesta Braun, Moritz Muller & Erin Sullivan, published as a three-part blog series.

Professor Ken Meier is one of the most prominent researchers of the world in the field of Public Administration. Meier holds appointments as a professor of Public Administration at Cardiff School of Business (Wales), a professor of bureaucracy and democracy at Leiden University (The Netherlands), research…

Helen Duffy was appointed as the Gieskes Chair of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law last year. As the title suggests, her research, and to a large extent her teaching, focuses on how diverse areas of international law co-apply and interrelate.

Leiden University will be the stage of the annual award ceremony of the World Cultural Council (WCC) on 8 November. We answer the five key questions about these prestigious prizes.

On 21 April 2022, Cleveringa Professor Jan Grabowski visited Leiden. The theme of his visit was the role of law and historiography in shaping collective memories.

Jiemiao Chen is running a study on eye-contact with a virtual audience. The study involves introducing oneself to the audience while wearing eye-tracking glasses and filling out some questionnaires. Participation is possible until mid-June.

The Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition is the world’s largest moot court competition. The Competition is a simulation of a fictional dispute between countries before the International Court of Justice. This year more than 570 law schools from across the world participated.

PhD defence

In the largest study of ancient DNA ever conducted, an international team of scientists has revealed the complex story behind one of the defining periods in European prehistory. The study is published this week in the journal Nature.

The Executive Board of Leiden University has appointed Dr Jeroen Touwen as Vice-Dean and portfolio holder for bachelor’s programmes at the Faculty of Humanities.

We are very honoured to announce that on the 1st July Bart Custers has been appointed Professor of Law and Data Science and has thus become the first Professor in the new 'stimuleringsprogramma' SAILS.

How to create an unforgettable astronomy experience for tourists? And how to create fun activities that also have scientific and educational value? The Astronomy & Society Group at Leiden Observatory has translated a manual that answers those questions. The Observatory’s public engagement team hopes…

An article by Bert Fraussen, Adria Albareda, Caelesta Braun, Moritz Muller & Erin Sullivan, published as a three-part blog series.

The Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies is offering two internships on a full-time basis in spring 2019.

How do we account for historical power dynamics when writing new histories of slavery and emancipation? What critical methods can we employ when studying preserved archives and collections? A new book series aims to address these questions. The initiators Karwan Fatah-Black and Ilse Josepha Lazaroms…

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.’

eLaw - Center of Law and Digital technologies from Leiden Law School, and the Vascular Surgery Department at Leiden University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, join forces to explore the use of AI for diabetes and secondary prevention of diabetic foot problems and won a prize for it.

Lecture

Alumni event, Lezing

PhD defence

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…

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…

Three lecturers from Leiden University have been awarded a €100,000 Comenius Teaching grant within the Senior Fellows programme. A further two lecturers have been awarded a €50,000 grant within the Teaching Fellows programme. The grants will enable the lecturers and their project teams to realise an…

Brandon Zicha (Leiden University College The Hague) had always been critical of the teaching system at universities. But it was only when he passed the Senior Teaching Qualification at the end of last year that he was able to explain exactly what was wrong with it.

Friday 25 April 2025 | Leiden University Institute of Security and Global Affairs – The Hague

In the eighteenth century, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) housed its enslaved people on ‘Slave Island’ in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. Today ‘Slave Island’ is under serious threat from property developers. Senior lecturer Alicia Schrikker, together with her Sri Lankan colleagues Iromi Perera…

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.

Lecture

PhD defence, Doctoral Exhibition

How can we best tell the current generations about some of the darkest parts of our past? To answer this question, researchers from Leiden are working with the Gedeeld Verleden, Gezamenlijke Toekomst foundation on public programmes about the Dutch history of slavery.

Arco Timmermans Public Affairs

In the public debate on the coronavirus, bold assertions from academics, doctors and other medical practitioners are often heard. For example, that the coronavirus would be no more deadly than the flu. Or that measures to combat the virus like wearing face coverings are unnecessary.

How do you make lobbying and rhetoric both challenging and understandable for high school students? Professor Jaap de Jong found the answer in climate activist Greta Thunberg. Together with his colleague Arco Timmermans, he developed a digital guest lecture on how to present a convincing story.

It's a no-brainer: of the candidates that you can vote for on 23 May, 14 studied at Leiden University. We asked four of them about their motivation and ambitions. In this article we interview Samira Rafaela, alumna of Public Administration, and Caspar Rutten, who is studying Law.

To support policies and decision-making on sustainability, it is important to involve citizens and stakeholders in the process. The term used for this in Public Administration is 'participation'. Professor Eefje Cuppen observes that things still often go wrong with participation. Inaugural lecture on…

Networks play an important role in various studies, ranging from analysing epidemics in human populations to studying connectivity in electrical circuits. Vincent Traag contributes to the development of igraph, a popular package for analysing large networks.

Carola Schoor, programme manager for Public Affairs at the Centre for Professional Learning (CPL), reflects on Politico on the State of the European Union speech by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen from a political strategy and messaging perspective.