At the heart of this study is a thorough inquiry of categorisations of social identity used in the VOC’s record-keeping bureaucracy. How were service, occupational and caste groups classified and shaped by the VOC?

How did colonial law work to turn people into property? This project argues that colonial ideas about households and domestic authority were critical to legal processes of enslavement in the early modern Dutch empire. Using colonial court records from Dutch Brazil, Suriname, and the Moluccas, the project…

Earth and outer space have become increasingly intertwined environmentally, politically, and philosophically, as satellite constellations multiply, lunar activities expand, and aspirations for Mars and beyond gain momentum.

The MA in Middle Eastern Studies provides intensive and comprehensive training to prepare you for a range of careers requiring specialist language, cultural, or political knowledge.

How can the law provide legal safeguards for the save introduction of quantum technology for consumers, and how can these safeguards be examined and interpreted through interdisciplinary collaboration?

The quality of care for our senior citizens could be improved. The master's Health, Ageing and Society focusses on biological, individual and social aspects of ageing, as well as on management of care. In this master’s you will be inspired, will learn to look with a broader view, and innovate in co-creation…

In our European and International Business Law Advanced Master programme, you learn to decipher the hierarchy of European & international business law

This Philosophy: Global and Comparative Perspectives bachelor's programme is unique. It offers comparative perspectives from around the world that will enable you to be part of the next generation of thinkers, someone studying and shaping philosophy for a globalised 21st century.

Africa is fascinating! In today’s globalised world, the continent plays an increasingly important role in international, social and cultural developments. Would you like to explore the many sides of Africa and its impact on the rest of the world, while also learning one of its languages? Our African…

The two-year research master in Middle Eastern Studies equips you with advanced and in-depth knowledge of a region and discipline within the field of Middle Eastern Studies. You are expected to spend the third semester of the programme doing research, either in the Netherlands or abroad. Blended and…

A number of developments within and outside the University make it necessary to treat the issue of innovation with greater urgency. An overview of these developments is given below.

Project TARGET aims to improve our understanding of gun violence in Europe and the relationship between gun violence and firearms trafficking.

The Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (CADS) of Leiden University hosts almost 50 PhD candidates working on a wide variety of topics.

The purpose of eLaw's Working Groups is to stimulate a productive working environment for cooperation within the Center for Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University.

A research program that focuses on the development and implementation of cyber norms.

The methodology helping us to prepare for and shape preferred futures.

The International Bachelor in Psychology in Leiden is a broad study with a strong focus on research.

Jason Rudall, Assistant Professor of Public International Law at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, has published a monograph entitled 'Responsibility for Environmental Damage'.

Financial support that wealthy countries provide to poorer countries in order to help them combat climate change and the associated emissions was the central topic of this year's UN Climate Change Conference in Baku. Annemarie Drahmann, Associate Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, discussed…

PhD defence

What do people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama have in common? They have mastered the art of public speaking. There are plenty of books on learning this skill, but one aspect of rhetoric remains underexposed in science: how do you make sure the audience remembers your message? Martijn Wackers…

The Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum on International Humanitarian Law and the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies hosted the second annual “International Humanitarian Law Clinic Exchange Conference”, from 8 to 14 December 2016, in The Hague. The idea to organize the conference stems from a collaboration…

The topic of conversation at The Great Continental Breakfast the morning after the EU elections in the Netherlands was the election campaign, the – lacking? – constitutional basis of the EU and the Timmermans effect. ‘These were the most normal EU elections ever!’

The Rutte-III coalition agreement has been presented and the commentary is flooding in. Public administration experts Arco Timmermans and Gerard Breeman examined the new agreement – as they have done for every coalition agreement since 1963 - and made a systematic analysis of it: it is very much about…

It was not light, but its absence that caught Stephanie Noach's attention a few years ago. With her research on darkness in art, she aims to show how darkness can question and sometimes even undermine colonial imagery.

Prof. Annetje Ottow and Assist. Prof. Seda Gürkan visited the College of Europe campus in Bruges on 22 March 2024.

Below is an overview of the highlights of 2019 for our faculty.

On 11 and 12 April, the kick-off conference “The role of law in Libya’s national reconciliation” took place. The conference marked the official start of a research project by the Van Vollenhoven Institute of Leiden University and the Centre for Law and Society Studies of the University of Benghazi on…

igraph, an important open source network analysis library, will receive two grants of $400,000 (approximately €340,000) over the course of the next two years.

As of 1 July, Gijsbert Rutten is Professor by special appointment of Historical Sociolinguistics of Dutch at Leiden University. Rutten, who also works as Director of Education at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL), will, among other things, research the historical relationship between…

Students awarded the highest scores to Leiden University and the Radboud University Nijmegen. These are the findings of an annual survey by Elsevier into the best study programmes in the Netherlands. Elsevier Magazine has a weekly readership of half a million, making it one of the most iinfluential…

On March 21 2018, a study was published in Nature, co-authored by Professor M. Soressi from the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University, announcing the sequencing of five new Neandertals, raising the number of high-coverage sequenced Neandertals from two to seven. A tooth lost by a Neandertal woman…

A better integration of Digital Humanities into study programmes, so that students develop their digital skills as well as possible. That is what Hossam Ahmed wants to achieve in the coming years. He received a senior Comenius Fellowship to develop a digital programme for students.

Madalina Busuioc, Associate Professor at the Institute of Public Administration, has been awarded the prestigious Fernand Braudel Senior Fellowship by the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence.

On Friday afternoon 15 November 2024, the Leiden University Sustainability, Business and Human Rights Network and Discussion Group (LUSBHR) organised the Corporate Responsibility Conference: Topical issues on fundamental rights and sustainability. The afternoon was spent considering corporate social…

At a festive book presentation on the 21st of July Prof. em. Henk Versnel received a copy of the volume Coping with Versnel. This historiographical volume highlights the important position of Versnel’s work in the study of religion in the ancient world.

On 1 October, Yvonne Bleyerveld, Senior Curator Drawings and Prints at the RKD, becomes the Professor by Special Appointment 'Art on Paper and Parchment' at the Faculty of Humanities of Leiden University. The chair, established by the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD), is hosted by the Leiden…

Following the success of the Dutch version, the podcast 'Scandal and Controversy in Russian Literature' is now also available in English. Senior University Lecturer Otto Boele guides listeners through eight infamous texts in this version.

Dutch politics has long been a paragon of stability. Think, for example, of our party system until, say, the last decade. At the same time, we also see occasional changes and significant shifts. Society has changed and this is reflected in, among other things, how we vote and how policy is made. About…

The Jus Post Bellum Project is seeking submissions of academic research papers for presentation at the final project conference on ‘Jus Post Bellum and the Justice of Peace’ on 29-30 September 2016 in The Hague.

'The EU should not give way under pressure as the war continues,' writes Joris Larik, assistant professor of European law, in an opinion piece that was recently published in Dutch newspaper FD.

Misha Plagis, assistant professor at the Grotius Centre of Public International Law wrote a paper together with Dr Nicole De Silva (Concordia University) entitled 'NGOs, international courts, and state backlash against human rights accountability: Evidence from NGO mobilization against Tanzania at the…

Many of our staff and students have won an award, received a grant, obtained an academic fellowship for their quality or have been socially engaged due to their specific expertise. See below for an overview per year.

Inaugural lecture

Afstudeerceremonie

Arts and culture, Competition

Lecture, Peace Histories Seminar Series

A research team from the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) has received over 3 million euros in funding from the Knowledge Centre Surveillance and Protection, a partnership between the Dutch National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security, the Public Prosecution Office, the police,…