Working towards resilient communities, transparency in science and connecting with the employment market – these are the three key themes being addressed by the departments of Social and Behavioural Sciences at Dutch universities. On 11 February, they presented a joint sector plan to Marcelis Boereboom,…

Scientists regularly appear in the media. They participate in science cafés, write a popular-science book or visit school classes. In that way, they want to convey their knowledge and enthusiasm to society. But do they succeed? To answer that question, a new website is launched, with a toolbox full…

Do you like running or helping charity? Then join the Leiden Science Run on 29 September! Form a team together with friends, colleagues, roommates for this relay race of 5 km at the Bio Science Park in Leiden and Oegstgeest. Leiden University is organising this sponsor contest for the UAF, in collaboration…

This project aims to situate the current policy concept of ‘valorization of scientific knowledge’ in historical and epistemological perspectives. Conceptual understanding of the utility of scientific practices is developed in dialogue with historical analyses of the politics of knowledge in European…

The book ‘Forty years of Leiden Environmental Science’ is available in digital format (PDF). It relates to the history of the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML).

On Sunday 8 October 2023, during the Weekend van de Wetenschap, the Faculty of Science of Leiden University will open its doors to anyone curious about science from 11.00 to 16.00 hrs! Explore a world of wonder and discovery; where science is transformed into an unforgettable adventure. Intriguing…

Four female computer scientists share a common goal: to showcase the significant contributions of women in computer science and inspire their students. Together, they are organising this year’s Alice & Eve event, a one-day symposium dedicated to celebrating women in computer science. The event, scheduled…

On March 5, CWTS and the Leiden University Data Science Research Programme will organize the symposium ‘Fairness and Transparency, towards responsible data science’.

The Hague Journal of Diplomacy is delighted to announce it will be starting its own podcast series! The series will be aimed at bringing the themes of the journal’s research off the page, and onto the discussion table. Each episode will feature a guest who will share their insights and personal experience…

On 9 October 2023, Carlotta Rigotti and Eduard Fosch-Villaronga participated in the BIAS webinar on citizen science and AI technologies, namely the first awareness-raising activity of the Horizon Europe BIAS project. They discussed online citizens’ engagement on tackling gender and intersectional biases…

Leiden University and the Beijing Institute of Technology will be collaborating in the area of computer science teaching and research. One of the first outcomes of this collaboration will be a joint four-year bachelor's programme. Willem te Beest, Vice-President of the Executive Board, and Professor…

Each year, Latin American diplomats meet the researchers and students from Leiden University who specialise in their region. This year, they visited the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. ‘The social and behavioural sciences have improved our understanding of social unrest.’

Professor of Ecotoxicology Martina Vijver of the Institute of Environmental Sciences has given a public talk at Paradiso Amsterdam for Science & Cocktails on 4 March 2019. Her presentation was called: 'The added value & added risk of size: nanomaterials'.

Mariska Kret, Professor in Cognitive psychology has been awarded the European Research Council (ERC) Public Engagement with Research Awards 2022. Kret convinces the jury with 'RecognizeYourself - Bringing science to the zoo. Involving the public into the study of great apes emotions'.

Islamic State may be losing ground rapidly, but Syrian President Assad's position is gaining strength. His torture chambers and the battlefield are scenes of countless criminal acts. Will these crimes ever come to trial, at the International Criminal Court, for example?

Professor Jasper Knoester has been appointed Dean of the Faculty of Science at Leiden University. He will take up the role on 1 January 2022. Knoester is currently Dean of the Faculty of Science & Engineering at the University of Groningen. He succeeds Paul Wouters (Dean of the Faculty of Social and…

The right student in the right place. That is what LIACS programme director Frank Takes and education coordinator Joyce Glerum are aiming to do with the ‘Wisselstroom’ project. By next year, they hope to have a standardised protocol that will make it easier for computer science students to transfer…

Leiden was ‘European City of Science’ in 2022. Leiden University looks back on a fantastic year with activities, lectures and workshops full of science and curiosity.

Leiden University’s Political Science and International Studies programmes continue to enjoy a solid academic reputation. In the 2016 QS World University Rankings, Leiden is in the top 25 of the most esteemed institutes worldwide. Within the Netherlands, Leiden has retained the first position.

An international committee has assessed computer science research at all Dutch universities in the period 2009-2014. For its computer science research, Leiden was awarded the ‘highest’ mark (1) for relevance to society.

Do you like running or helping charity? Then join the Leiden Science Run on 29 September! Form a team together with, for example, your old study mates or old roommates for this relay race of 5 km at the Bio Science Park in Leiden and Oegstgeest.

Professor Mariska Kret has received the Mercator Sapiens Stimulus, a new science prize from the Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW). The prize consists of a sum of 1m euros.

Massive science communication projects should be based on strong and relevant science cases. They should engage with a large number of stakeholders, not only in research, academia, policy, funding and governance but also in less traditional communities, such as the arts field. This is the outcome of…

What is life like as an academic? Twelve PhD candidates will report on their daily work in videos and blogs on the Faces of Science website (in Dutch). They include three researchers from Leiden who are researching topics such as North Korean support for African liberation movements, how differently…

Under a sunny sky 44 teams completed the Leiden Science Run this weekend. They raised as much as 3450 euros for refugee-students’ association UAF.

PhD students Alex Brandsen and Wouter Verschoof-van der Vaart are both doing a project within the university’s Data Science research programme. The are introducing terms like ‘text mining’ and ‘advanced machine learning’ into archaeology. ‘These techniques will make archaeology more efficient and ch…

In July, Leiden will be hosting the EuroScience Open Forum conference. Humanities scholars from Leiden will make use of the opportunity to stress the importance of art in science. ‘Artists have the ability to show the consequences of science.’

At the Faculty's opening of the 2019-2020 academic year, the focus lay not just on the vision for the future of the social sciences, and the opening of the refurbished library, but above all on the government's plans for university financing. The speeches included an interview between Annemarie Samuels…

25 Years ago, the Center for Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences was founded at Leiden University; one year later, in 1985, the education program of Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences started. On Friday September 18th, this was celebrated with a Symposium, an anniversary booklet, and a grand party.

Rebecca Schaefer received the new science communication grant for the SNAAR Festival in December 2020. With the festival, Schaefer wants to make music and science accessible to a wide audience. How exactly? That's what she tells in this issue of Humans of Psychology.

The Graduate School of Science starts 2024 with a new Dean. The Faculty Council appointed Erik Danen for the coming four years. He succeeds Eric Eliel, who has held the position since May 2020.

In September 2017 the Institute of Political Science (Leiden University) will launch a new bachelor’s programme: International Relations and Organisations (IRO). It will taught in English and be based in the city of The Hague. The three-year IRO programme is aimed at international, as well as internationally-oriented…

Jojanneke van der Toorn has been proclaimed the young and promising researcher of 2015. At the official opening of the academic year on 31 August she was awarded the Gratama Science Award for emerging talent.

In 2018 NETWORKS organised a very succesful masterclass on networks and their applications for secondary school students with the title 'NETWORKS goes to school'. This week, NETWORKS published the collection of contributions with an extensive introduction. The aim of both the masterclass and this…

On International Women’s Day 2020, the first edition of the Leiden Top 50 was revealed, a list of 50 women who made a difference in Leiden in 2019. Among them three women from our Faculty: Martina Vijver, Felienne Hermans and Irene Groot.

The Leiden Science Run 2019 is dedicated to Scholars at Risk, a programme of the UAF, an organisation for refugee students. This programme offers endangered scientists a temporary opportunity to continue their research work in a safe academic environment.

Leiden University continues to do well in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. For the subject area Politics and International Relations, the 2018 edition ranks Leiden 67th in the world. This is not that far behind the ‘usual suspects’ (Cambridge, Stanford, MIT and the like). Among…

For her research into complex family problems, an assistant professor in Forensic Family and Youth Care Studies Sabine van der Asdonk has won the Gratama Science Prize 2021, a prize for talented young researchers from the universities of Leiden and Groningen. The jury praised Van der Asdonk’s excellent…

What is the role of local authorities and communities in shaping how inter-Schengen borders are understood and dealt with?

On 9 January 2019, Marieke Wierda defended her thesis 'The Local Impact of a Global Court: Assessing the Impact of the International Criminal Court in Situation Countries'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. C. Stahn en Prof. dr. L.J. van den Herik.

One of the current research projects funded by the profile area Political Legitimacy is the research group From Disorder to Order: Conflict and the Resources of Legitimacy.

The university aims to expose all students to sustainability topics and issues that are relevant to their field during their time studying here. Students are educated to become academic professionals with the necessary knowledge and skills to contribute to the sustainability transition.

Andrei Poama, Assistant Professor at Leiden University, published a piece in the journal of Political Philosophy about social injustice, disadvantaged offenders and the state's authority to punish.

Research goal: To support the design of technologies (counter-measures and communication measures) for the prevention, interdiction and mitigation of lone actor extremist events (LOEEs), which are hard to anticipate, yet can be highly damaging to local and national communities and therefore must be…

Everyone most obey the law. If you don’t, you will face the police and the courts. The application of national, European and international criminal law would seem to be a matter of following the letter of the law. But the reality is more nuanced. Criminal law scholars and criminologists from very different…

New book on Dutch mayors governing local order and public safety.

Twelve researchers of our Law School have been awarded an ILS seed money grant. This grant enables researchers to create space for preparing a grant proposal for NWO, ERC or otherwise.

When does radicalization not lead to terrorist attacks?

The key subject of the research programme Cities, Migration and Global Interdependence 1500-now (CMGI) is Inequality (at local, national and global levels). We study this from an intersectional perspective: gender, class, ethnicity or race, religion, sexuality, age, ability/disability, citizenship and…

Is it acceptable for an algorithm to make mistakes? Quinten Meertens investigated this at Leiden University and the UvA and has been nominated with his research for the prestigious Christiaan Huygens Science Prize. The winner will be announced on 11 October. In April, Meertens received his doctorate…