Iraqi-Kurdish student of Middle Eastern Studies Bareez Majid has been nominated for the ECHO Award. ‘She has a strong personality, though she may appear unassuming at first,’ was the comment from one of her lecturers.

The WARN project seeks to understand why certain warnings fail to reach and impact decision makers in time to avert crisis.

Major renovations, much-discussed exhibitions and current museum related questions. ‘If you want to know what is happening in the art and museum sector in a very up-to-date way, then the 'Museum Talks' lecture series is the thing for you’, says Professor of Art History and organiser Stijn Bussels.

Inaugural lecture

How can we promote more durable solutions to protracted refugee situations and which roles can connectivity and mobility of displaced people play to improve protection and resilience?

The Turn of the Soul: Representations of Religious Conversion in Early Modern Art and Literature

On 17 August 1945, two days after the Japanese surrender that also brought an end to the Second World War in Asia, Indonesia declared its independence. The declaration was not recognized by the Netherlands, which resorted to force in its attempt to take control of the inevitable process of decolonization.…

LEGO creations, a clothesline of visions and a journey into the past and the future: just some of the highlights of Uni-vision day, where creatives developed their vision of the future of study.

To increase the accuracy of climate models, it is crucial that they include past human land-use and human-driven vegetation changes. Here archaeology can make an important contribution. Current models are based on reconstructions of past vegetation. However, their accuracy is limited because it does…

Dr. Kirsten Leiss and Prof. Peter Klinkhamer received 900.000 euro’s from “Stichting Toegepaste Wetenschappen (STW)” and the company “Rijk Zwaan” to develop plants that are resistant to thrips, a major agricultural pest all over the world.

Graduates Bruno and Plym took part in the National Think Tank last year. Together with 20 other students and recent graduates, they spent four months pondering the future of our digital society. ‘You learn so much in the space of four months, not just practical skills but also about yourself.’

Like many others, Ruurd Halbertsma has had a rollercoaster of a year. His museum, the National Museum of Antiquities (RMO), was closed for a long while because of the lockdown. Visitor numbers picked up again from September, but it the next few weeks will be tense now the hospitals are full again. Halbertsma:…

From cloth to serge and from ‘frame lands’ to a wool factory. Archaeologist and historian Roos van Oosten was pleasantly surprised by what she found out about Garenmarkt in Leiden. The historical research on the site of the new car park, which opens to the public on 19 February, has added a new chapter…

Martijn Manders conducts research on the sunken VOC ship De Rooswijk. Tirzah Schnater from the Ministry of Education, Culure and Science produced this impressive report of the work of this underwater archaeologist.

PhD candidate Daniël Gomon has developed statistical methods that could significantly improve research in fields like medicine and demography. ‘Mathematicians don’t like unrealistic assumptions,’ he says. Gomon will defend his PhD thesis on 19 June.

Two consortia led by Leiden researchers have been awarded over one million euros by the Dutch Research Council and the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport to find solutions to antimicrobial resistance.

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.’

Since the demonstration over a year ago on the Wijnhaven campus, Leiden University has developed plans and initiatives to create the safest possible work and study environment for our university community. The Executive Board would like to explain what has happened since and what else we can expect…

Tahir Abbas was named full professor of radicalization studies by the Executive Board. This chair, according to Abbas, is an excellent opportunity for ISGA to broaden its current focus on terrorism and political violence. Abbas was interviewed about his ambitions, writing as a form of relaxation, and…

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Union (EU) and its Member States have adopted wide-ranging legal and political measures to support Ukraine in its struggle.

Lecture, Austrian Studies Fund Lunch Talk

With the economic surge in East Africa, the East African Community, formally founded in 1999 and now consisting of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, is rapidly developing. A common market is being established, and a monetary union is under construction. The EAC thereby forms an important…

The newly established Leiden Jewish Studies Association aims to bring together Leiden scholars working on Judaism. The first annual conference will take place in Leiden on 6 and 7 December. Leiden professors and co-organisers of the LJSA Sarah Cramsey and Jürgen Zangenberg talk about their plans.

Since the 16th century, religious concerns have motivated the study of Old English and its speakers. In the 19th century, scholars turned to the study of Old English literature in particular to find traces of pre-Christian, ‘Germanic’ religion, as discussed in Eric G. Stanley’s seminal work The Search…

Political scientists Tom Louwerse, Simon Otjes & Cynthia van Vonno introduce the Dutch Parliamentary Behaviour Dataset, a record of parliamentary (voting) behaviour in the Dutch Tweede Kamer (Second Chamber, House of Representatives) since 1945.

This series of seminars convenes researchers based in North America and Europe in order to inspire and further establish reflections about race, race-thinking, and racialization among scholars of late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The first seminar will be held on Monday, October 19, at 12:00 EDT by…

On February 10 2025, the Leiden Jewish Studies Network convened a lively roundtable and catered reception at the Faculty Club to celebrate the launch of Dr. Kate Brackney’s new book, Surreal Geographies: A New History of Holocaust Consciousness (University of Wisconsin Press, 2024), winner of the George…

The Middle Ages are becoming increasingly more popular: just look at the popularity of such ‘medievalist’ TV series as Game of Thrones and Vikings, and let’s not forget popular re-enactments of medieval battles. Leiden University is home to many specialists of this fascinating period and this new blog…

On the Day of Privacy, 28 January, the European Commission is calling on citizens to make sure they protect their personal data. But how do you do that, and against what, exactly? Privacy researcher Bart Custers explains.

On Wednesday 19 January 2022, the online mid-term review of the legal programmes took place on the platform Let’s Get Digital. It was an interactive afternoon in which 130 participants openly and critically discussed the educational strategy for the legal programmes and the faculty.

From 14 to 29 PhD candidates, seven actively involved faculties and, above all, lots of innovative interdisciplinary research, all with data science as the common denominator. The university’s Data Science Research Programme (DSO) has proven so successful that after five years on a start-up grant it…

They existed and were important, but for too long they have remained invisible in historiography: women. Ariadne Schmidt, the Magdalena Moons endowed professor, researches the history of urban culture in Leiden. Women take pride of place in her research. Inaugural lecture on 28 February.

A stable home situation is important for the successful return to society of prisoners. So what is their home situation like? And what effect does it have on reoffending? PhD defence on 16 January 2020.

At least six people are off to a good start of the summer, because they are the recipients of a Meijers grant. For the next few years, these researchers will be able to devote themselves to their PhD research. Let’s meet these new PhD candidates!

On 22 and 23 November 2018, the international conference ‘Safeguarding Children’s Rights in Immigration Law’ organized by the Institute of Immigration Law and the Department of Child Law took place at Leiden University. Currently, there exists tension between the idea that children deserve specific…

Sexual exploitation of children abroad: the Dutch government calls on its citizens to not look away from 'suspicious situations’ while turning a blind eye to the root causes of the problem themselves. Koning, who recently obtained her PhD on transnational sexual exploitation of children from Leiden…

Jan Joosten studied civil and tax law in Leiden from 1985. After exchanges and an internship, he became infatuated with the United States. He is now a partner and co-founder of a new law firm in New York: Pierson Ferdinand.

In the confrontational ‘House of Misconceptions’, visitors put themselves in another person’s shoes and have to justify their existence. The performance is the result of a unique collaboration between the Liquid Society art collective and Professor of Law and Society Maartje van der Woude and her st…

In the middle of doing research for her master’s thesis, Sara Kalf (24) was hit by a car and got seriously injured. After a long period of rehabilitation and hard work, this week she can finally add her signature to the wall of the Academy Building’s ‘Sweat Room’.

It was a memorable start to September. While Leiden marked the opening of the academic year, The Hague celebrated the launch of three new degree programmes. Students were welcomed on a blue carpet rolled out at the entrance to the lecture halls.

2025 was a year to remember at our faculty. We celebrated our 450th anniversary, launched new degree programmes and welcomed many inspiring speakers, yet we also felt the weight of budget constraints. Our year in a nutshell:

A review of Elke Devroe's participation in the European Society of Criminology of 2016 : The first conference of the European Society of Criminology was held in 2000 in Lausanne. Now, 16 years later and lots of new ESC-members later, the 16th Annual conference of the European Society of Criminology…

Kool made a conscious choice to work for a non profit organisation. Recently, inspired by the pandemic, she also made a career switch.

Student Session

Why is Arabic poetry relevant for our understanding of the Arabic-speaking world? Arabist James Montgomery explains this in the first video interview of the Leiden | Islam interview series produced by Leiden Islam Centre LUCIS. 'If there is anything which is going to make the situation worse, it is…

On Tuesday, September 16, Professor Elisheva Baumgarten (Hebrew University) delivered the keynote speech entitled 'The Kindness of Others: Jews, Christians and Early Childhood Care in Medieval Europe' at the 'Care and the Jewish Experience' Conference at the Faculty Club in Leiden.

What can you expect from studying in Leiden or The Hague? Which programme should you choose? Should you join a student association and will you need to find a room? Over 8,000 prospective students showed up at the Leiden University Open Day: a record. Here's what some of them had to say.