Following the elections for the University Council, the new student party ONS has won five seats, LVS two and CSL one. All the parties in the staff section have retained their seats. The turn-out was low for both staff and students.

On Friday 12 January 2018, the University of Curaçao celebrated its 39 years of existence. Prof. Ton Liefaard , Professor of Children’s Rights and UNICEF Chair in Children’s Rights addressed the audience with a lecture entitled: “20 years United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Do we…

In December 2020, the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs and Helmut Schmidt University of the German Armed Forces in Hamburg signed a cooperation agreement to cooperate in the education realm on a variety of topics related to the Civilian and Military dimensions of European and Global Security…

Het boek met de titel ‘the story of constitutions’ probeert interdisciplinair te begrijpen waar de grondwet vandaan komt en waarom het juist nu in korte tijd viral is gegaan. Waarom is dit oeroude fenomeen de laatste jaren zo in populariteit toegenomen en ook nog eens in een tijd, waarin democratieën…

Jean-Eric Paquet, a Director-General at the European Commission, visited Leiden University on 20 February. He was impressed by the researchers’ drive, the wide range of topics that they research and the strong collaboration with Leiden Bio Science Park.

A new Master's Day will be taking place at Leiden University on 16 March 2018. Prospective master's students can explore the different master's programmes to find the right one. Want to know what you can expect at the Master's Day? This video will give you an impression.

Mariana Gkliati participated on 4 April in the course International Human Rights offered by the SIM, Netherlands Institute of Human Rights, at the University College Utrecht.

Young Academy Leiden (YAL) will change its board this month and welcome seven new members. Outgoing chair Julia Cramer and incoming chair Rachel Plak look back at the highlights of the past year and discuss YAL’s plans for the coming period.

Minuscule elementary particles from space colliding with Earth can give us an insight into the distant objects they come from. But first, you need to know how to catch them. With a Vidi grant from NWO, researcher Sjoert van Velzen will 'hunt' for neutrinos coming from exploding black holes.

Did you know that each year 18 billion animals die without making it to someone’s plate? Governance of Sustainability alumna Juliane Klaura has won the second prize for her thesis about the environmental impact of global food production. She won the prize at the university-wide master thesis award event,…

The train to The Hague holds no secrets for Jeroen Touwen anymore. Since October, the Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Humanities has been part of the board of Campus The Hague. One day a week, together with Jan Crijns (Professor of Criminal Law and, as of February 15, Vice-Dean of the Law Faculty), he oversees…

On 16 June, Leiden University opens the MIGRADROME: a unique, seven-metre-long artificial river. Researchers will use it to study how light and sound affect migratory fish. ‘We’re recreating a real river, but under fully controlled conditions.’

It is the fifth year in a row that the Faculty of Archaeology is placed in the top ten of archaeological institutes worldwide. The QS World University Rankings by Subject looks at criteria like academic reputation and citation ratios. Dean Jan Kolen is pleased with this news: 'In recent years, the Faculty…

Dr. Mark Dechesne, associate professor at the Leiden University Dual PhD Centre (FGGA) will participate asas work package leader in a large new international project on radicalization among young people in Europe.

The Security Studies bachelor's programme has received a bronze medal in EW Best Studies 2023. Every year, EW Best Studies selects the top programmes in Dutch higher education.

Lecture, Research Seminar

When is the last time you made a fire? Not light a candle with a match, but an actual fire from scratch. Thousands of years ago, humans already made fire. Archaeologist Andrew Sorensen (Leiden University) explains when and how they did this.

Sofia Ranchordas (1985) has been appointed Chair European and Comparative Public Law and Rosalind Franklin Fellow at the University of Groningen. She will start this position on October 1st.

The Leiden University College team behind the Learning Mindset project has been nominated for the Dutch Higher Education Award, an award for innovative teaching in higher education. The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science announced this on 15 March.

Joseph Callingham from the Leiden Observatory receives the Louise Webster Prize for outstanding post-doctoral research. The prize is awarded by the Astronomical Society of Australia for Callingham’s search for the most extreme object in the Universe.

A Preventive Intervention Team that investigates children with behavioural problems and trains their social skills in order to prevent school dropout and other, more serious problems. This is a strategy that Leiden University and the municipality of Amsterdam have been using for several years already,…

An international team led by astronomers at Leiden University has shown in laboratory experiments that sulfur can bind with ammonium under icy cosmic conditions and form a salt that sticks to dust and pebbles. The resulting sulfur salt not only helps to explain the mystery of the missing sulfur gas,…

Whether finding signals of dark matter or discovering hydrogen in the vicinity of exoplanets, Leiden astronomers are world players in their field, and they are part of a long tradition: Leiden was the first university in the world to have its own observatory.

After a successful career as a singer, Esmee Schoones started studying French a few years ago. It resulted in a national award for her thesis on musical arrangements of Verlaine's poems and a job teaching French.

Intensify cooperation between the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) and the Netherlands Defence Academy (NLDA). This is the purpose of the agreement that will be signed on 16 November at the Campus The Hague. On that day, Defence Minister Ank Bijleveld will also give a lecture in Wijnhaven…

As Director-General of the ESO for the past ten years, Leiden University astronomer Tim de Zeeuw had ‘the best astronomy job in the world’. Back at the Leiden Observatory, he is focusing on the first 3D map of the Milky Way.

Young Academy Leiden (YAL) will change its board this month and welcome six new members. Outgoing chair Rachel Plak and incoming chair Ahmed Mahfouz talk about what the platform has achieved for young academics over the past year and what the plans are for the future.

Prof. Julia Sloth-Nielsen has been awarded the Schim van der Loeff grant by the Leiden University Fund to conduct research on unaccompanied migrant children in Zambia.

On 6 September 2019, the Governor of Murang'a County, Mwangi wa Iria, signed a declaration at Leiden University to protect the rights of children.

On 20 June 2025, Melanie Fink presented her research on ‘Robo Swarms and Polygraphs: The Future of European Border Management and its Human Costs’ at the Research Workshop on ‘Migration law at the intersection of international, EU and domestic law: institutional structures and the protection of human…

Income inequality in the Netherlands is an upward trend. Leiden University will examine the causes behind this increasing inequality and why income inequality persists. The research has been commissioned by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment.

Last Wednesday, a very special edition of the Lunch Seminars took place in a combined session between the research programs Interaction between Legal Systems and Reform of Social Legislation. Jason Beckfield, Professor in Sociology at Harvard University, gave a very interesting presentation on Social…

The Europa Institute is proud to announce that Leiden University has won the prize for Best Written Memorials at the 2014/15 European Law Moot Court Competition (ELMC) Final in Luxembourg!

On 29 and 30 April 2015 the Leiden Centre for East African Law (LEAC) hosted its first Annual Conference in Kigali, Rwanda. The conference was organized in cooperation with the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) and compared integration through law in the EU and the EAC.

Three researchers from Leiden University have received awards in the Quantum Technology programme within the National Growth Fund, organised by NWO in collaboration with Quantum Delta NL. Read more about these three futuristic projects.

Having served on the Executive Board for over nine years, the last five of which as Rector Magnificus, Hester Bijl will leave Leiden University at the start of next year. In a new step in her career, she will become Rector Magnificus on the Executive Board of Delft University of Technology (TU Delft)…

In early January, Joanne van der Leun (Dean of the Leiden Law School), Ton Liefaard (Program Director of the Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights, LL.M), and Anette van Sandwijk (Head Bureau International Education) visited China.

Festival, Graduation Film Festival

On November 18, 2014, Prof.Dr. I Pallikaris, Prof.Dr. C. Lionis and Prof.Dr. A. Philalithis undertook a visit to the LEAD Programme in order to attend a meeting during which the objective to join the International Consortium on Indigenous Knowledge Systems and Development of Mountain Communities (IKS&DMC)…

The Utrecht-based VIDI project Lettercraft in Early Medieval Europe, AD 481-751 is working on a new database of Merovingian epistolary communication. We are looking for enthusiastic (R)MA students who would like to join us this Fall as research apprentices for the first phase of data entry and analysis.…

On the 28th of January 2019 Beryl ter Haar gave a guest lecture at Tbilisi State University organised by the European Law School Association (ELSA). The lecture addressed issues of EU fundamental rights, more particularly it was on the freedom to conduct a business versus several labour rights, among…

Dr. Anke Klein, head of the Knowledge Center for Anxiety and Stress in Youth (KAS) and Associate Professor at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, has been appointed as faculty lead of the Leiden Healthy Society Center (LHSC) on behalf of Leiden University.

LUC The Hague is recognised as a national Top Programme, reflecting a vibrant learning community where curiosity, academic excellence and global engagement come together.

Leiden University has had a diversity policy since 2014. The aim is to create a diverse and inclusive learning and working environment for all students and staff. Diversity Officer Aya Ezawa updates us on the process and the results. It’s now 2022, what has already changed?

After a long night of partying, hundreds of people head to Leiden’s Van der Werfpark early on 3 October for a good singsong. Lecturer in Dutch literature Olga van Marion helped compile the new songbook for the occasion. Which songs were left out and which new hits have taken their place?

For several years, the University of Tasmania has been ranked first among universities worldwide in terms of climate action. The interest in this topic is therefore very pronounced.

Lecture, Research Seminar

ASTRON en de Universiteit Leiden beginnen samen een nieuwe leerstoel over sterrenkunde en AI. Bijzonder hoogleraar Joeri van Leeuwen gaat deze positie vullen.

The ongoing conflict in Kashmir is often seen as a political issue between India and Pakistan. Idrees Kanth, who has written a dissertation on the subject, believes that the people of Kashmir are the primary contenders in the conflict and should be allowed their right to decide their own political fate.…