Leiden or The Hague? Dutch or English? These two questions decide which introduction week new students at Leiden University can best choose: EL CID, HOP or OWL.

During the HOP week, new students in The Hague get to know the city, their study programme and - most important of all - one another. In 2018, The HOP week looked like this!

Although Islamic State has largely been beaten, for now the Jihad scene in the Netherlands is more than alive. That is what professor Edwin Bakker (terrorism and counterterrorism) recently said in an interview in the Algemeen Dagblad.

On 25 August 2018, the Leiden Adv. LLM Study Programme in European and International Business Law (EIBL) celebrated 25 years of its existence.

The Dutch scientist prof. dr. Ewine F. van Dishoeck, Leiden Observatory, Leiden University and Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, will receive the 2018 James Craig Watson Medal from the american National Academy of Sciences (NAS).

Timo Kos has been appointed Vice President of Leiden University’s Executive Board and will take up the role on 1 March 2025. He succeeds Martijn Ridderbos, who will join the board of the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) on 1 January 2025.

Two Leiden physicists took part in the Lindau conference in Germany from 26 June to 1 July. They met Nobel prize winners from their field.

Forget Python, Java and Scratch: there is now an accessible programming language for children. This is Hedy, invented by Dr. Felienne Hermans of LIACS. Thanks to a collaboration between Jetlearn, an online programming school based in Amsterdam, and Leiden University, Hedy now has translations in Hindi…

Discipline and Place in the Social Sciences and the Humanities, with these fields taken to include archaeology and law, is an annual lecture series for PhD and Research Master’s students at LeidenGlobal partner institutions. Previous editions have received highly favorable evaluations.

Small, remote islands were long thought to have been the last frontiers of pristine natural systems. Humans are not thought to have been able to reach or inhabit these environments prior to the dawn of agriculture, and the technological shift that accompanied this transition. A paper recently published…

The Europa Institute is delighted to announce the appointment of Freya Baetens to the Chair in EU External Economic Law.

So called 'jihad municipalities' are being more closely monitored as a result of the arrests on 25 November 2019 of two terrorist suspects from Zoetermeer. Jelle van Buuren, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, looks back at the latest developments over the last few y…

The European Space Agency (ESA) has approved the proposal for gravitational wave detector LISA. The launch for the space detector is planned in 2034. ‘A dream that comes true,’ says astronomer Elena Maria Rossi.

Using 2D materials, physics student Romme van der Kemp developed a nanochip that is extremely small ánd scalable. This is needed to make all kinds of technologies better, faster and smaller. He has been nominated for the FWN Young Talent Award 2023 for his research.

The third Honours Academy Star was awarded to Jan Sleutels during the opening ceremony of the academic year of the Honours Academy on Tuesday 6 October. Sleutels is a lecturer in the Honours College Humanities Lab of the Faculty of Humanities and coordinator of the Pre-University College.

When a spot in the core group of the Strategy Team became available, she immediately applied for the position. Because as Head of HR, Elice Schöne feels it is important that her department is well connected to the strategic plan.

On Thursday 21 November 2019, the project You&EU, in which Frederik Behre participated, won the Europaeum Scholar’s Prize for their social media campaign during the 2019 EU parliamentary elections.

Researchers from Leiden University will develop a new approach to study the biomarkers of Alzeimer’s disease. This approach focusses on the molecular messengers of the cells. The project, led by Thomas Hankemeier and coordinated by Yuliya Shakalisava (Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research, LACDR),…

Philosophy alumna Naomi Rebekka Boekwijt returns to Leiden University on 20 June to present her latest novel Stemmen (Voices) in Plexus. ‘I wanted to show that things could be done differently in psychiatric care.’

Gilles van Wezel has been appointed the new Scientific Director of the Institute of Biology Leiden starting September 1st, 2018. Van Wezel succeeds Herman Spaink, who has been the Scientific Director since September 2014.

The World Data Visualization Prize for 2019 was awarded to Dimiter Toshkov, Associate Professor at the Institute of Public Administration, for his work on the theme of small states and good governance. The prize is a good way to raise awareness about the value of good data visualization.

After seven months of hard work, the participants in the Research Traineeship Programme concluded their research on Friday 2 September with a pitch and a poster presentation.

On Wednesday the 31st of October, a Dragon’s Den style pitching competition took place at PLNT in Leiden. Seven teams pitched their business ideas to a panel of potential investors, consisting of experts in the field of entrepreneurial finance (such as a representative from Symbid, one of the first…

On Wednesday 16 April, two inspiring career events took place at Leiden University: the Humanities Career Event in Leiden and the Job Fair in The Hague. Together, the events attracted nearly 1,000 students exploring their future career paths.

The Dutch legal system perhaps appears at first sight not to be very suited for strategic litigation by interest groups. But judgments such as SyRI and Urgenda show that when an interest group does fulfil all the conditions, anything can happen in court.

Inspectors say the William Schrikker Foundation, a leading Dutch youth protection agency, is failing in its duties. Mariëlle Bruning, Professor of Child Law, told public broadcaster NOS: ‘It's deeply concerning that there's insufficient oversight of children’s safety.’

On March 16th, students from all over the world visited Leiden's Humanities Faculty to explore their options during the Master's Open Day. 'Leiden is a beautiful city, I feel like I could definitely study here.'

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.

There was a time when student Lelani Antar wanted to go to film school. She ended up studying International Studies, yet she didn’t quite say goodbye to film. For her minor, she and three other students made an essay film.

History student Mitchell Wiegand Bruss is taking part in the water council elections. Whereas until recently he had no idea what the governing body stands for, he now wants to create awareness among other students about the political body.

Edmund Flett, alumnus of the International Relations master's programme, has won the 2023 J.C. Baak Prize for his thesis ‘Settlements now, settlement later. Land swaps, settler relocation, and the viability of the two-state solution in Israel-Palestine’.

Tahir Abbas, Professor of Radicalisation Studies at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, organised a book launch for his new book: 'Ruminations: Framing a sense of self and coming to terms with the other'. The book launch took place on Thursday 15 December at Campus The Hague.

Male scientists owe their position to their brilliance, women to their hard work. Or do they? The Equalista app helps staff and students at the Faculty of Humanities to become aware of gender equality.

Leiden physicist Milan Allan and his group have discovered an apparent paradox within a material that has zero electrical resistance. They measured trapped charges, while charges should in theory keep flowing in the absence of resistance. The discovery could provide a missing piece of one of the big…

Leiden or The Hague? Dutch or English? These two questions decide which introduction week new students at Leiden University can best choose: EL CID, HOP or OWL.

It is difficult to get access to North Korea. That makes scientific fieldwork very difficult. Korea expert Valérie Gelézeau shared her experiences during a lunch lecture at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) on 16 February.

Boyd Leupen has won the Institute of Political Science MSc Thesis Prize 2015. With 'Refuting asymmetrical Kantianism: On the moral standing of animals', Leupen completed his Political Science master studies and contributed an excellent piece of scholarly work. According to the jury, his thesis stands…

Professor of Media Law and Information Society Tarlach McGonagle is concerned about the increase in online disinformation and hate speech. He argues that human rights should guide new policies for the online world. McGonagle will give his inaugural lecture on 9 May.

In Sci-Fi comic book Resist NOW!, wondrous adventures will illustrate possibilities to combat antimicrobial resistance. But the comic book will only be produced if enough money is raised to make the project into reality.

During the Summer School, held at Leiden Law School in Leiden and the Hague, the participants were offered a wealth of lectures and workshops on international and regional children’s rights issues affecting children, families and communities.

Students from the Biology programme have completed the most surveys of the National Student Survey (NSE) of all Science students. This is what Assessor Bernice Dekker announced on behalf of the Science Faculty Board on 22 March at the Science Club.

Leading experts claim the Dutch government is doing too little about the situation in Gaza, even pointing to a violation of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Larissa van den Herik, Professor of International Law, comments on the topic in RTL News and BNR Radio.

On 22 January 2018, the Massive Open Online Course ’A Circular Economy of Metals: Towards a Sustainable Societal Metabolism’ kicks off. This course is developed and taught by associate professor Ester van der Voet.

On 10 December Walter Burkard won the Jaap Doek Children’s Rights Thesis Award 2020 for his thesis on climate change and children’s rights.

In an interview with Leidraad Alumni Magazine (no. 2, 2019), Marieke Liem states that it is almost impossible to compare between murders. ‘In our society we are inclined to frame murderers as monsters. Sometimes there is a very fine line between perpetrator and victim.’

On Monday 15 February 2016 the annual Speckmann Prizes were granted at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology. BA-studenten Laura Bakker, Kimberly Drijver and Martijn Kooijman were awarded for the best Fieldwork NL project; Rosi Aryal was honoured for having written the best…

Anyone in Leiden wanting to join a student association has plenty to choose from. But the risk of alcohol abuse is a very real one. Leiden University, Leiden University of Applied Sciences and dozens of student associations have signed a new alcohol covenant that promises they will do their best to…

Ben de Jong, inlichtingen-deskundige en gastonderzoeker en -docent bij het ISGA aan de Universiteit Leiden, werd geciteerd in een artikel in het Algemeen Dagblad over topografische kaarten die de Russen tijdens de Koude Oorlog gebruikten. De Sovjet-Unie beschikte over een ongelofelijke hoeveelheid…

A course that concludes with a video pitch, instead of a paper or examination: Italian Language and Culture students each recorded their own knowledge clip, speaking to a wide audience about Italian cultural expressions. We asked Goran Bouaziz, Cameron-May Bosch and Katja Timmer what they thought of…

From 13 to 24 June 2022, the Summer School on the European Union, the United Nations and Global Governance, supported by the Erasmus+ (Jean Monnet) Programme was held for the second time.