The ESSHC is coming to Leiden (Wednesday 18 - Saturday 21 March 2020)! The European Social Science History Conference is one of the largest gatherings of historians in Europe. The next conference will be held in Leiden in 2020. We are very happy that Leiden has been chosen to host this conference.…

The Radboud Institute for Culture and History is looking for a researcher/PhD candidate in the project 'The Social Life of Early Medieval Normative Texts'. Deadline for applications: July 6.

Maurits Berger worked as a lawyer in Amsterdam and as a journalist and researcher in Egypt and Syria. Since 2008, he has been a Professor of Islam in Leiden. Now he finally gets to do what he really wants: bringing his social knowledge and experience with Islam to the academic world. His call to the…

How can business strategies help us solve social problems? This was researched by students of the Master Honours Class 'Social Innovation in Action' over the past twenty weeks. During the final seminar of the class they presented their creative enterprises to tackle child poverty in Leiden. ‘It’s not…

It’s not a regular occurrence at Leiden University: two professors giving their inaugural lecture on the same day. Berna Güroğlu and Ellen de Bruijn specialise in related disciplines: they both research the influence of social context on processes in the brain – Güroğlu in adolescents and De Bruijn…

Experts from several disciplines have raised concerns about the use of seemingly precise models to guide policies in matters as complex as the current Covid-19 pandemic. 22 scholars wrote down five principles on how to responsibly use scientific models. This comment was published in Nature on 24 June…

Developmental Psychologist Anna van Duijvenvoorde talks about her research on the development of brain and behaviour in adolescents. An important part of this research is social learning which is crucial in puberty. Several media sources devoted attention to her research. In 2020, she received the Heineken…

How does the medieval body of texts known as 'canon law' reflect social and moral ideas? With a combination of AI and an advanced dataset, can we reveal patterns in the transmission and alteration of these ideas over time? Join the SOLEMNE project as a research assistant to explore these questions and…

On Friday, April 5, the Ecuadorian police stormed the Mexican Embassy in Quito to arrest former Ecuadorian vice president Jorge Glas Espinel.

Valedictory lecture

The student loan system, implemented in 2015 in part to improve the quality of Dutch education, is facing political backlash. Despite having signed the student loan system agreement in 2015, both GroenLinks and PvdA have had a change of heart.

Girija Joshi will be doing research for her doctoral dissertation at Leiden University. She will be examining the ways in which the different constraints upon and possibilities for movement that developed in South Asia along with the establishment of the colonial state transformed both the nature and…

Call for participation:

Turbulent times in Italy: Deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini wants new elections so that he can become prime minister himself. He is campaigning on social media, including photos of himself posing in his swimming trunks.

European integration is under pressure. At the same time, the notion of a European administrative space is being explicitly voiced. But does a shared idea of the public servant exist in Europe?

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…

Ten Leiden social and behavioural scientists have successfully applied for the NWO Open Competition. With this Open Competition, NWO gives researchers the chance to start small, high-risk, innovative or promising research projects.

Human Rights at Risk brings together social scientists, legal scholars, and humanities scholars to analyze the policy challenges of human rights protection in the twenty-first century.

Hardly ever before have different groups in the population retreated into their own bubble as much as they are doing today. Professor of Sociology and Law Maartje van der Woude and her students will be examining the effect of social distancing on relationships. How do the people of Leiden look at students…

In the nineteenth century many Dutch people believed in the end of time and the coming of God's thousand-year reign. This belief effectively slowed down the process of modernisation that was taking place in the Netherlands at that time, concludes historian Rie Kielman. PhD defence 13 April.

Composer Paul Craenen (1972) is actually a pianist, but as part of his PhD ceremony, he performed a composition on PVC pipes. Craenen studies the position and role of the body in music. ‘I am interested in what precedes the resulting sound’.

Hybrid zones occur where two species meet and produce offspring (hybrids). Typically, hybrids show a considerable reduction in fitness. In this thesis two hybrid zones are treated.

Leiden Asia Departments

Yvonne Erkens, Associate Professor Labour Law, was a guest lecturer at the FHR Institute for Higher Education in Paramaribo, Suriname, from 4 to 11 November.

‘Countering violent extremism – the international deradicalization agenda’ is the name of the book Tahir Abbas published last month. In this interview the associate professor in Terrorism and Political Violence at ISGA tells about the backgrounds and goals of the book.

In this article Vanessa Newby discusses how the ANZUS states of United States, Australia, and New Zealand that sit on the fringes of the Asia-Pacific, are increasingly using their armed forces to deliver Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Response (HADR) as a way of engaging with the region.

There are a number of problems in philosophy that seem to share a similar possible solution: 'Why do promises and contracts bind?', 'Why ought citizens and judges obey the law?' and 'Can we realize the gains to be made from cooperation?'. All three problems (as well as some others) share a possible…

For early modern Europeans, the past was a measure of most things, good and bad. For that reason it was also hotly contested, manipulated, and far too important to be left to historians alone.

This article explores how ISIS and the Taliban have fostered support through their parallel legal systems.

On the brink of war, what influences decision makers to attack another country? Using innovative theoretical angles, Femke E. Bakker explores whether the basic assumptions of democratic peace theory are indeed correct. She stresses the microfoundations of conflict, questioning the assumptions on…

Donald Trump's US election victory is causing major concerns in many countries, including Iran. Afshin Ellian, Professor of Jurisprudence, spoke about this on Dutch all-news radio station BNR: ‘Denying that they're worried is really just for show’.

What does a 19th-century exhibition of traditional utensils from the province of Zeeland tell us about the current rise of populism? A lot, Ad Maas will say in his inaugural lecture.

Registration for the Co-Align 2023 conference is open!

This project aims to develop advanced data analysis methods for monitoring and increasing our understanding on biodiversity dynamics in nature reserves such as the Oostvaardersplassen.

Can we determine the 3D structure of a chemotaxis core complex using single-particle reconstructions via cryo-EM?

Among Leiden’s Firsts was Hajjah Maria Ulfah Soebadio Sastrosatomo. In 1933, she was the first Indonesian woman student to earn a law degree.

An analysis of researchers' global mobility reveals that limiting the circulation of scholars will damage the scientific system.

Under what circumstances is politicization more likely to occur than others, and what impact does politicization have on government legitimacy and performance?

An investigation carried out by Dutch news programme Nieuwsuur has revealed that despite a recent ruling by the Centrale Raad van Beroep (Central Appeals Tribunal, CRvB), people who for years cared for a seriously ill relative paid for via a PGB (persoonsgebondenbudget, personal care budget) do not…

Online content can be harmful to democracy and the self-regulation approach is no longer adequate, claims Professor Tineke Cleiren in an opinion piece in Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant.

Young Academy Leiden wants to bring together young academics. After all, it is not that easy in practice to meet peers outside your field. With inspiring and fun Faculty lunches, the organisation strives to connect young researchers. The most recent, hosted at the Faculty of Social and Behaviourial…

Leiden’s ‘Learning with the City | On Location’ knowledge store opened its digital doors in Leiden-Noord on 8 February. This is where students, residents and professionals can work together on social issues.

Book project on how European policy is made and implemented, with a focus on how that process can be understood and lead to policy change.

In Ancient Egypt, prominent families engaged in ancestor worship to maintain their high standing. Renata Schiavo researched this link between religion and power for her PhD. ‘People were afraid that their ancestors would bring misfortune if the family’s prestige declined.’

Stay tuned for updates on relevant media appearances of Anne-Laura van Harmelen.

The research in the framework of the Jean Monnet Chair is focused on the following points.

This summer, political scientist Thijs Vos received the Kaare Strøm prize for his paper ‘Power or Ideology? What structures legislative voting behaviour in Dutch municipal councils, ideology or coalition-opposition dynamics?' He was awarded the prize during the ECPR summer school on parliaments in F…