On 1 February 2016 the fourth issue of the Journal of the LUCAS Graduate Conference, titled 'Breaking the Rules: Textual Reflections on Transgression', was published.

Mosques with limited opening hours, fewer family visits and fewer events: for the second time, Ramadan was different due to Covid. Islamologist and deputy director of the Leiden Islam Academie Fatiha Azzarhouni looks back on a special month.

Graduation Ceremony of the LL.M. Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights 2024–2025

Diana Dávila Gordillo, PhD candidate at Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science does field trips to her native Ecuador.

ACPA alumnus Gabriel Paiuk is releasing a new album, titled Degrees of Transparency, on the Unsounds label.

Samen met andere studenten bracht Fien Lurvink hulpgoederen naar Oekraïne en nam vluchtelingen mee terug.

The number of women in the Netherlands dying before, during or after childbirth has halved.

Across Latin America, stories of violence against women reveal how deeply gender, power en inequality are intertwined. Researcher Martín Hernán Di Marco tells how storytelling, activism and research together challenge the global cycle of violence against women and girls.

On 14 February, the second student edition of Mediaforum, journal of media and communication law, was festively launched with a symposium in the Academy Building of Leiden University. During the symposium, the student authors, some of them from our own ranks (Roosmarijn Altink, Roosmarijn Niesing and…

Yvonne Erkens has been appointed Professor of Labour Law at Leiden University as of 1 January 2026.

After 7.5 years, Jan Kolen is stepping down as Dean of the Faculty of Archaeology. For him, it does not feel like a dramatic moment. ‘It is part of the role: you pass the baton on to someone else.’ He adds with a smile: ‘And I will remain connected to the faculty, so it is not really a farewell.’

Children who lost their fathers in early modern England ran the risk of being sold to the highest bidder. Although Shakespeare wrote about it in his plays, the practice disappeared from collective memory for a long time. University lecturer Lotte Fikkers is bringing it back to light in a new Vidi research…

On Monday 2 March at 16:00, the Faculty of Archaeology opened the travelling exhibition Archaeo‑Sexism. The exhibition will be on display throughout the month in the F0 corridor of the Van Steenis Building, as part of Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day on 8 March.

‘Don’t forget us. Don’t stop talking about Iran.’ In a packed lecture hall at the new Spui Campus in The Hague, a panel discussion was held this Tuesday on recent developments, tensions and the wave of state violence in Iran.

On 6 March, this year’s Thorbecke Lecture was held in Leiden. Christoph Van der Elst of the Faculty of Law and Criminology at Ghent University delivered the lecture entitled: ‘The digital economy and the digital organisation’.

‘Wonder is the beginning of insight. Don’t let that academic curiosity erode.’ This was Jan Anthonie Bruijn’s call to administrators and funding bodies in his valedictory lecture.

The Leiden-Birmingham network initiative welcomes applications from colleagues from Leiden University and the University of Birmingham for a research stay at one of the two host institutions.

Boudewijn Röell's Olympic medal, an ancient skiff and photo's of memorable rituals. Asopos de Vliet - Princess Beatrix was a member - is celebrating its 55th anniversary with an exhibition in the Oude UB, from 1 November to 26 January.

As Professor of African Linguistics, Nancy Kula increases our knowledge of variation across languages. Her inaugural lecture is on Monday 23 March.

Canal Cups, Auke-Florian Hiemstra and Liselotte Rambonnet’s project to rid Leiden of disposable plastic cups and its canals of litter, has taken 59th place in Trouw newspaper’s Top 100 sustainable initiatives.

Researchers have used AI to reconstruct the rules of a board game carved into a stone found in the Dutch city of Heerlen. The team concludes that this type of game was played several centuries earlier than previously assumed.

Leiden researchers, led by Sebastian Pomplun developed a new method to screen hundreds of thousands of molecules for drug discovery, using mass spectrometry instead of DNA tags. ‘We wanted to make drug discovery faster and more accessible.’

Ecologist Pengxuan Xie investigated whether rooftop farming can contribute to food production in cities. This is important now traditional food supply chains are vulnerable to disruptions.

Starting April 2026, Niels van Willigen will join the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University’s Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences as Professor by Special Appointment in Strategic Studies. This appointment was made possible by the Atlantische Commissie, which established this chair…

Master’s student Anna van Ark has landed her dream internship at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. For three months, she’ll be shadowing the curator and conducting research on Japanese prints for the acquisitions team.

Goede en actuele data zijn cruciaal om infectieziekten effectief te bestrijden en de volksgezondheid te beschermen. Bijzonder hoogleraar Susan van den Hof en haar team zetten zich in voor betere data-methoden, zodat infectieziekten vroeg worden opgespoord en doeltreffend worden aangepakt.

On 15 February 2022, Irma Mosquera Valderrama, Professor of Tax Governance, holder of the EU Jean Monnet Chair on EU Tax Governance EUTAXGOV and Principal Investigator of the ERC funded project GLOBTAXGOV, participated in the High-Level Webinar Taxation and Business in Africa.

Understanding what our buildings and cities are made of is an important step in making them more sustainable. Industrial ecologist Tomer Fishman (CML) has received an ERC Starting Grant to map the construction materials used in buildings in the Global South. 'Without the data, you can't formulate po…

Exile: an Interview- 29 December 2022 & 2 February 2023 at Beit Ha'gefen Gallery, Haifa.

Workshop

PhD defence

Read all about YAL membership and the members of the Young Academy Leiden.

450 years

Brainstorm Session

Workshop

Those who know their dystopian classics will inevitably associate the concept of surveillance society with the all-knowing oppressive force characterized as Big Brother in George Orwell’s novel 1984. However, surveillance permeats our society in many more subtle aspects than our worst fears about spy…

Physicist Diego Garlaschelli co-authored an extensive review in the journal Nature Reviews Physics. Surprisingly, the subject wasn't physics at all, but the networks of banks and other financial institutions, and the way their structure relates to financial crises.

From molecular ping-pong to cassava in the Amazon, and from extraterrestrial life to special antibodies. Twenty-five researchers from Leiden University have been awarded a Veni grant from the NWO. A grant of up to 250,000 euros will give them the opportunity to further elaborate their own ideas over…

Thijs Porck, expert in medieval English, has won the LUCAS Public Prize because he has made his research and education visible to a wider audience. Thijs has reached the national media, secondary schools and a lot of views with his blogs and videos. The prize consists of a certificate, trophy, 1000…

Lecture, Global Histories of Knowledge Seminar

Lecture, COGLOSS lecture

From 1 August 2018, Alanna O'Malley was appointed as Chair of United Nations Studies in Peace and Justice, focusing on the ‘lesser-known actors’ of the UN: women, the youth, the agents of informal diplomatic networks within the UN and actors from the Global South. This Special Chair has been created…

KITLV-Jakarta merayakan hari jadinya yang ke 50 tahun. KITLV-Jakarta adalah bagian dari perpustakaan Universitas Leiden. Dalam rangka hari jadi tersebut beberapa kegiatan diselenggarakan. Beikut highlight dari rangkaian perayaan ulang tahun KITLV-Jakarta. KITLV-Jakarta’s 50th Anniversary Seminar: “Indonesian…

During the online panel discussion ‘Het spel en de macht’ (the game and the power) held on 9 March, six members of Leiden’s Centre for Dutch Politics and Governance (CNPB) discussed trends regarding the current and previous general elections. Will it be tense, this campaign? ‘Baudet probably still has…

For the first time, a group of international and interdisciplinary researchers led by Karline Janmaat and her former MSc Student Chirag Chittar, have tested the several hypotheses on music simultaneously in a modern foraging society during their daily search for tubers – their staple food.

Professor Eline Slagboom has been studying multiple generations of families for over 20 years. She collects data on why some people age healthily and others decline early.

The final conference of the Eurasian Empires programme took place from 15 to 17 June 2016 in Leiden. The conference concluded a five-year research programme in which nine researchers worked on their own specific projects within the programme’s Eurasian scope, transcending borders by bringing together…

The Faculty’s traditional New Year’s reception, like everything else these days, was transformed into an online event this year. Dean Paul Wouters as the host led us through the programme filled with the Casimir Teaching Award, the Pieter de la Court Medals, the Master’s Thesis Prizes, and a short lecture…

The latest forum in the Hague Journal of Diplomacy highlights the rich potential for interdisciplinary research at the intersection of architecture, diplomacy, and international relations. These contributions, spanning from the early American republic to the contemporary era, reveal how diplomatic spaces…