All sorts of predictions have already been made about the AI system ChatGPT: the programme is going to turn education on its head, make search engines look old-fashioned, and put copywriters out of business. Copywriters? Does that include legislative draftsmen? In other words, can ChatGPT draft legislative…

Anne Meuwese and Francien Dechesne have received SSH Open Competition M funding from the Dutch Research Council for their joint project 'The Artificial Intelligence Act in action. Probing and improving the quality of legislation in the algorithmic era.'

Francien Dechesne, Associate Professor at eLaw, contributed as an expert to the advisory report of the organisation AlgorithmAudit, which was presented to the Dutch Minister for Digitalisation Alexandra van Huffelen on Wednesday 29 November 2023. The report contains a number of concrete norms to avoid…

Anne Meuwese, hoogleraar Public Law & Governance of Artificial Intelligence, heeft in een uitzending van een EenVandaag NPO Radio1 een vraag van een luisteraar beantwoord. De vraag, ingegeven door de wens een apart ‘ministerie van Digitale Zaken’ te creëren, luidde of tijdens een regeerperiode een nieuw…

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.

Meet the people behind Science for Sustainable Societies! As a small-scale and hands-on bachelor’s programme, our team plays a big role in shaping your learning experience. In this section, you will find interviews with the people who make this programme happen: our teachers, researchers, educational…

At the Faculty of Archaeology, three new professors are appointed with effect from February 1, 2018. They are Ann Brysbaert, Marie Soressi, and Joanita Vroom. How do they react to their appointments, and what will be their foci in the following years?

The Municipality of The Hague, Leiden University and CBRE Investment Management (CBRE IM) will together try to realise a University building in the former Hudson’s Bay premises at Grote Marktstraat 48-50/Spui 3. This will facilitate the growth of Campus The Hague. A cooperation agreement was signed…

Het NVIC is per september 2018 op zoek naar een enthousiaste leraar/lerares Nederlands. Voor meer informatie neem contact op met Mw Anne van Leeuwen, per email op info@nvic.leidenuniv.nl

On Tuesday 12 April Angus Mol and Aris Politopoulos have been awarded the fourth LUCAS Publieksprijs.

On 15 June 2022 Professor Anthropology of Sustainability and Livelihood Marja Spierenburg was one of the invited speakers at the round table in the House of Representatives of The Netherlands.

Professor Wim Willems of the Centre for Modern Urban Studies (MUS), together with Anne van Mourik, is researching the life of Ru Paré, the woman who saved 52 Jewish children during World War II.

Currently, the bill ‘Wet versterking waarborgfunctie Awb’ (strengthening the guarantee function of the Dutch General Administrative Law Act) is in preparation. The bill is intended to strengthen the human dimension in the execution and administration of justice.

A team of students from Leiden University, TU Delft and Rotterdam University won a golden medal during the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition (iGEM) in November in Boston. Their project ELECTRACE concerned a bacterium that can be used to search for landmines.

Ann Marie Wilson and Andrew DJ Shield have been recently awarded a Leiden Global Interactions SEED grant to support the launch of a new platform for sexuality studies at Leiden University: the Leiden Queer History Network (LQHN).

The updated MRI scanner at the Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC) will become operational on 29 September. The new version is faster and better than the current model.

Last Friday, during the ELS Academy Annual Event, Loran Kostense (VU), Sofia de Jong (Leiden University), Rieneke Stelma-Roorda (VU) and Anne Verboom (Leiden University) were awarded a €5000 research grant to carry out research on comparing the method of case law reviews versus court file studies. In…

For the Netherlands, like many other European countries, the nineteenth century was a period of strengthening national identity. Anne Petterson describes how 'the ordinary people' of Amsterdam expressed their patriotic feelings differently from how the elite had hoped. PhD defence 24 January.

Leiden PhD candidate Jo-Anne Verschoor discovered that nearly twenty percent of the bacterial strains she studied could degrade plastic, though they needed some encouragement to do so. ‘Bacteria are just like people,’ says Verschoor. Her research was published in the journal Communications Biology,…

Metamaterials have properties that depend on their shape and architecture. Researchers at AMOLF, Leiden University and Tel Aviv University have found a new way of designing these metamaterials and their properties by deliberately incorporating small errors. They publish their results today in Nature…

What does it mean to innovate education? And what motivates professors to innovate? How does innovation work at the University?

Sinds 1973 vindt in december jaarlijks een congres plaats voor staatsrechtjuristen: de zogeheten Staatsconferentie. De conferentie vindt bij toerbeurt plaats op een locatie die is gekozen door één van de Nederlandse rechtenfaculteiten.

Leiden researcher Anne-Grete Märtson brought together a large number of studies to better understand antibiotic dosing in patients with obesity. The publication in a renowned medical journal has already garnered much positive reactions, Märtson says. ‘It’s high time researchers started sharing more…

Psychologists Marieke Tollenaar, Anne Miers and Esther van den Bos received donations from the Leiden University Fund and Stichting Praesidium Libertatis to take crucial first steps in research projects that may eventually contribute to the well-being of vulnerable youth.

Neuroscientist Anne Hafkemeijer is able to distinguish two different forms of dementia using advanced imaging techniques. This is the first step towards early recognition of dementia in patients on the basis of brain networks. PhD defence 26 May.

Leiden University addresses the UN on children’s rights

Anne-Laura van Harmelen has received a Vidi grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This talent programme will enable Van Harmelen to research the social and neurobiological mechanisms of resilience in young people with childhood trauma.

In September 2025 Leiden University hosted a greatly successful academic conference

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

The project has been done in the Mechanical Metamaterials group under the supervision of Prof.dr. Martin van Hecke and MSc Anne Meeussen . The title of the presentation is: ''Elastic Moduli of Smooth and Corrugated Thin Silicone Rubber Sheets.

PhD candidate Gineke Wiggers has received a scholarship to attend the 41st International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval.

The Seventh European Congress on World and Global History, entitled

In context of Anne Helder’s defense of her doctoral thesis, we had the pleasure to welcome Prof. Kate Cain for a symposium last week.

People are keen to make a contribution that will be valuable for scientific research. Many thousands are taking part in the Major Flu Survey. Leiden researcher Anne Land is publishing on this subject in the Journal of Science Communication.

In november 2023 is Anne Fleur van Veenstra, wetenschappelijk directeur van TNO Vector, benoemd tot bijzonder hoogleraar ‘Governance van data en algoritmen voor stedelijk beleid’.

When children were asked to draw a scientist, a bald, middle-aged man in a white coat was most often depicted. Why is that? A group of Leiden University science communication researchers discovered that children already get this impression in primary school. Published in PLOS ONE on 16 November.

Professor Anne Meuwese is calling on governments to show more vulnerability when it comes to providing information about how they function.

‘Raising awareness of the disorder is crucial since borderline personality disorder (BPD) still faces considerable stigma ’, says Anne Krause-Utz (Clinical Psychology) . Together with an international team of excellent scientists, Krause-Utz provides an update of current knowledge about this disorder,…

It is often thought that immigration threatens the solidarity on which redistribution relies. But looking at the post-war period, PhD candidate Emily Anne Wolff finds that this is not the case.

After receiving positive feedback from peers, socially anxious young people feel as confident about themselves as their non-anxious counterparts. 'These young people are then able to handle new social situations more confidently,’ says Leiden psychologist Anne Miers. Her research is published in the…

Eleven ambitious Leiden students hope to heal burns with a special substance from squid teeth. They are taking part in the international iGEM competition. They need to raise almost 10,000 euros to fund their project this summer.

Injections can be a source of stress and anxiety for children. The Willem-Alexander Children’s Hospital is exploring ways to improve the experience. Together with illusionist Victor Mids and researchers from Leiden, they have shown that magic can help.

Research on this theme concerns the legitimacy and effectiveness of Europe’s institutional order in the face of public alienation and normative contestation.

Rising geopolitical tensions are causing states and national elites to innovate their use of the past for present-day political ends. This is certainly true for the People’s Republic of China, which celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2024 amid mounting superpower rivalry, ideological tensions with the…

Leiden University’s Master of Laws in International Children’s Rights (LL.M.) looks at human rights laws for children from a comparative perspective.

Researchers from five different discplines work together in this interdisciplinary initiative.

The place of European states and institutions in world politics is the core focus of this pillar. Research on this theme concerns European actors’ ability to promote peace, security and justice in their neighbourhood and to shape the future of global governance by translating its economic size into…

The Data Science Research Programme at Leiden University combines data science with PhD projects in a wide range of disciplines. The programme has been running for over two years, and is producing the first astonishing results. A number of PhD candidates talk about their experiences and research bel…