After many years, Peter Hamersma will retire and resign as Programme Director for the BSc Molecular Science & Technology. His successor is Volkert van Steijn, who will start this new challenge per September 1st.

To improve our teaching and reward excellent teaching assistants, the institute offers a Teaching Assistant Prize to the best teaching assistant of the semester.

As of January 2017, LCDS-director Jaap van den Herik has been appointed member of the Advisory Board of WODC.

On 7 October, the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics was launched on the margins of an informal EU leaders’ summit in Prague. The initiative will provide a hub for high-quality research on Europe’s geopolitics, thus enabling the European Union to develop its strategic capacities.

On 28 and 29 October, the first Van Wittel/ Vanvitelli dialogue took place at the Clingendael Institute in The Hague. The Van Wittel/Vanvitelli Dialogue is a high-level roundtable on Italian-Dutch relations, organised by the Clingendael Institute and the Institute for International Affairs in Rome,…

Political scientist Cynthia van Vonno’s (Leiden University) 2016 dissertation has been shortlisted for the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Jean Blondel PhD Prize. Her study of party group unity in parliamentary voting was chosen from an exceptionally high number of nominations.

The Meijers prizes are awarded each year for the best published article from each faculty research programme. Reijer received the prize for his contribution to the programme ‘The Legitimacy and Effectiveness of Law & Governance’ with his article ‘Digitalisering en de (dis)balans binnen de trias politica’…

All Leiden alumni, students and anyone else who might be interested is welcome to attend the online Cleveringa Meeting in Leiden on Wednesday 25 November entitled 'The Corrosion of International Relations'.

De coalitie houdt woensdag en donderdag topoverleg over de koopkrachtdaling van 6,8%. Het kabinet wil deze ongekende koopkrachtval compenseren, maar hoe kan dat effectief en enigszins betaalbaar?

On 10 March students of the advanced master's in International Children’s Rights and the Dutch Child Law master's watched the documentary Shadow Game with filmmaker Els van Driel.

Environmental scientist Alexander van Oudenhoven has been chosen as Discoverer of the year of the Faculty of Science. Vice Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl announced this during the faculty’s New Year’s Reception on 10 January. Biologist Changsheng Wu won the prize for best dissertation of 2016. Computer…

Dr. Rosalien van der Poel succeeds Lonneke Regter as Institute Manager of the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA). Together with prof.dr. Henk Borgdorff, scientific director ACPA, she constitutes the board of ACPA since 15 November 2017.

The Executive Board of Leiden University has distanced itself from the Minister of Education, Culture and Science’s response to the Van Rijn Committee report. According to the University’s calculations, following the advice would have serious financial consequences for the entire University and would…

Yra van Dijk obtained a NWO 'Internationalisation in the Humanities' grant. Together with Ernst van Alphen she will collaborate with 8 European and Israelian partners in researching 'Digital Memory of the Holocaust'.

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…

Jihadism and smugglers, gold fever and ethnic strive. It is a toxic mix that makes the Sahel a volatile region in which jihadi's thrive. In the Dutch daily De Volkskant, terrorism expert Liesbeth van de Heide sheds a light on the complex problems that the Sahel is facing. Van der Heide is a researcher…

Dutch and international students brandishing bows and arrows fire at each other on the fields of the University Sports Centre on 11 May. This is the aim – not the shooting each other, but the act of getting together.

Conspiracy theories are of all times, and the government should never dismiss them as a fantasy of fools. Certainly not now, when it turned out that authorities made a conspiracy themselves with a journalist threatened with murder. Which proves that the truth is always more insane than you could have…

Between the early thirteenth and early sixteenth centuries CE, the Sultanate of Cairo affected the balances of power elites across and beyond the regions of Egypt, Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean. Modern historiography has for a long time been determined by the idea of this sultanate as a highly…

What would happen if there were fewer migrant workers in the Netherlands? Olaf van Vliet, Professor of Economics, discussed this question on Dutch news site NU.nl.

Manon van der Heijden and Leo Lucassen have been awarded funding from the NWO's Free Competition Humanities. They received the grant for their research on conflicts and jurisdiction over migrants and natives between 1600 and 1900.

Former PhD student Gerard van Westen was granted the C.J. Kok Award also known as “Discoverer of the Year”. A festive ceremony took place at the Faculty’s New Year’s reception on January 7, 2014.

Tom Barkhuysen and Michiel van Emmerik attended the 21st General Congress of the International Academy of Comparative Law that was held in Asunción, Paraguay on 23 – 28 October 2022. They wrote the national report for the Netherlands on the topic of Administrative Silence.

Simone van der Hof has been awarded funding for a Marie Curie Initial Training (PhD) Network for NETHATE. NETHATE will bring together an interdisciplinary team of world-leading researchers to tackle an ambitious & relevant research project on the nature of hate. The NETHATE Consortium, an international…

Zeger van der Wal, Professor by special appointment Ien Dales chair at the Institute of Public Administration wrote an opinion piece in Dutch journal Binnenlands Bestuur on the changing relation between government and society and how this affects integrity.

In de context van het FWO Project "The Social Life of Early Netherlandish Painting" dat wordt geleid door Frederik Buylaert, Jan Dumolyn (beiden Vakgroep Geschiedenis) en Maximiliaan Martens (Vakgroep Kunst-, Muziek- en Theaterwetenschappen) is een driejarige postdoctorale onderzoekspositie beschikbaar.…

Protestant missionaries have provided the earliest and most detailed sources regarding the ritual art of the Papuan peoples of the Geelvink Bay. Raymond Corbey brings these sources to bear on circa 300 ritual objects and their itineraries in the book KORWAR - Northwest New Guinea ritual art according…

Her specialist field is molecular astrophysics, and she is the most quoted scholar in her field. In this, the year of astronomy, she is the ideal person to give the Dies lecture at the university with the world's oldest astronomy institute; it goes without saying that the lecture will be on the newest…

Aad van der Vaart, professor of stochastics at Leiden University, has been awarded the NWO Spinoza Prize for his groundbreaking research in statistics. Van der Vaart conducts fundamental research on models that can help, for instance, to identify genes that play a role in cancer.

From painful joints to intense fatigue: a third of rheumatism patients suffer serious effects from this chronic condition and rely long-term on medication. Leiden psychologists are to receive a subsidy from the Netherlands Arthritis Foundation to investigate whether placebo techniques can help patients…

Alumnus Anoma van der Veere did Japanese studies and talks in this interview about his studies in Leiden and his work as a researcher at the Leiden Asia Centre and as Japanese correspondent in Tokyo.

Leiden University’s Campus The Hague has published its new strategy for the next ten years. Martijn Ridderbos, Vice-Chairman of the Executive Board, and Erwin Muller, Director of Campus The Hague, presented this today to Jan van Zanen, Mayor of The Hague.

On Thursday 7 May, Jolanda van der Vliet obtained her PhD based on her dissertation 'The International Protection of Environmental Refugees. A human rights-based, security and State responsibility approach.' The defence was held online. Jolanda worked on her dissertation under the supervision of the…

CML Researcher Merlijn van Weerd wins Parker / Gentry Award 2015 for Conservation Biology at Field Museum Chicago in recognition of his commitment to biodiversity conservation in the Philippines

Professor of Clinical Pharmacology Adam Cohen from Leiden University received the prestigious Dr. Saal van Zwanenberg Honorary Prize on 12 November. The prize honours a scientist who has distinguished themselves in the field of research that has directly or indirectly led to the development of new medicines…

Two years ago, Russian tanks crossed the border into Ukraine. The war seems to be getting closer and closer. Is it time to dust off and reintroduce military service? Our students have their say.

Paul van Trigt and Anna Derksen, both researchers in the project 'Rethinking Disability', received grants for research abroad.

Following developments in the US, the EU has now also opened the door for large-scale State aid to its own sustainable industries. A means to curb China’s power. However, this plan is driving the EU and the US apart.

The monthly ILS Lunch seminars bring together colleagues and students from Leiden Law School, providing an informal setting to hear what researchers from other research programs and institutes are working on. On Thursday 8 November, a new edition of the ILS Lunch Seminars takes place. This month, Philippe…

Peter Paul van Benthem is not only head of the ENT department at the LUMC but also chair of the Federation of Medical Specialists. ‘The value is in the mix.’

Every day we make use of devices, services and apps which contain algorithms that could be discriminating. These range from Facebook to self-driving cars, from the Tax Authorities to a rotating door.

What makes South Korean films successful? In the first part of the video series 'The World of the Korean Wave', University Lecturer Peter Verstraten discusses the recent success of South Korean cinema.

How is collaborative learning in teacher education designed and implemented? How do students experience those collaborative learning assignments? What aspects of the design and the implementation lead to which perceived learning outcomes?

The starting point for this research project is the notion that the human brain is susceptible to all kinds of fallacies and biases that affect our perceptions and influence our reasoning outside of our conscious awareness. Indeed, most people think they are merely observing facts and that they process…

The research group ‘Quantum and Society’ explores the boundary between quantum technology and science communication.

Since itch and pain can be very burdensome, especially when individuals suffer from (either of) these symptoms chronically, it is important to know the factors by which these sensations are influenced. It becomes more and more clear that psychological factors play an important role in the experience…

Is our musicality unique? To find out, the Bird Singalong Project brings together singing parrots from all over the world. Do you have a parrot that sings or whistles along to songs and would you like to help us? Sing up now!

This project sets out to map, document and analyze instances of squatting in Leiden from 1970 to 1990, in order to set up an online Digital Archive of Squatting in Leiden. This archive will function as an online resource for academic research, as well as a starting point for public activities such as…

Knowledge and culture subproject 1:

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