International research agency Mercer has once again named the Dutch pension system the best in the world. Denmark comes second, and third place is for Australia.

Inaugural lecture

Inaugural lecture

Valedictory lecture

In the aftermath of the child care benefits scandal in the Netherlands, politicians in The Hague turned to self-reflection and, as a result, the call for the introduction of a constitutional court is growing louder. Pieter Omtzigt, a popular conservative politician and leader of the new party New Social…

Although Islamic State has largely been beaten, for now the Jihad scene in the Netherlands is more than alive. That is what professor Edwin Bakker (terrorism and counterterrorism) recently said in an interview in the Algemeen Dagblad.

Dr. Joris Larik, Assistant Professor at LUC The Hague, has been selected for a fellowship at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) in Amsterdam. During his fellowship, Larik will conduct research on a fundamental question: Was Brexit worth it when it comes to striking trade deals around…

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has made a subsidy of 17 million euros available to further develop a Netherlands network for electron microscopy (NEMI). The network comprises five UMCs and eight universities, with Utrecht in the coordinating role. From Leiden, the Institute…

Majid Khan, born and raised in Pakistan, left his wife and daughter behind to do research in Leiden. After obtaining his PhD, the Netherlands has taken a special place in his heart. ‘Biking in the rain and wind was weird. But I loved it.’

The Upper and Lower Houses of the Dutch Parliament are struggling with how tolerance should best be interpreted. As a result, the freedom in the Netherlands for people who hold alternative views is diminishing. This is Floris Mansvelt Beck’s conclusion on the basis of his PhD research. Defence on 2…

LUC has the best professors of the large university programmes in The Netherlands. Sharing the first place with University College Maastricht with 90/100 points, LUC scores significantly better than all other programmes. This year, next to the general Dutch university ranking, weekly magazine Elsevier…

Leiden Law School has been ranked number 32 on the QS World University Rankings 2017. Once again, it has been ranked best law faculty in the Netherlands and eighth in the whole of Europe.

The UN is highly critical of the Netherlands over the effect of its Work and Income (Capacity for Work) Act (WIA). Contrary to agreements, workers who are less than 35% incapacitated for work receive no benefits and the income of their partner is taken into account when they apply for welfare benefits.…

Interview with political scientist Hans Vollaard (Leiden University) about “Nexit” speculations, the strengths and weaknesses of Geert Wilders’s Party for Freedom, and the general attitude towards Europe in the Netherlands.

Leiden biology students have determined the origin of exotic alpine newts in the Netherlands using a special DNA technique.

A delegation from Leiden University visited various universities in Japan at the end of March. The strong ties between the Netherlands and Japan are still based on a long tradition of knowledge exchange.

Dutch politics has long been a paragon of stability. Think, for example, of our party system until, say, the last decade. At the same time, we also see occasional changes and significant shifts. Society has changed and this is reflected in, among other things, how we vote and how policy is made. About…

'Find your way from the stars’, an online workshop on Nautical Astronomy, was one of the winners of The Netherlands Online Cultural Challenge 2020. The workshop was conducted in collaboration with the IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach, Leiden University’s Astronomy & Society Group, and the Department…

Dutch and foreign alumni from Leiden are the oil that keeps the wheels of Dutch-Asian relations moving smoothly. That’s one of the conclusions reached during the area day of the Dutch ambassadors in Asia and Oceania. All of them gathered in Leiden University’s Academy Building on 30 January.

Lecture

The Effective Protection of Fundamental Rights Research Programme at Leiden Law School had the honor to organise the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research Annual Conference.

The number of women in the Netherlands dying before, during or after childbirth has halved.

Heike Vethaak and Egbert Jongen from the Department of Economics of Leiden Law School have been commissioned by the Dutch Trade Union Confederation (FNV) to conduct research on the development and distribution of wealth in the Netherlands. The research will start in July and the outcome is expected…

Today, CBS launches the Center for Big Data Statistics (CBDS), a cooperation of an unprecedented scale in the field of Big Data. Leiden University and HumanityX are key partners.

The Dutch chemical industry is regularly in breach of safety legislation. These are the findings of longitudinal research by the Department of Criminology at Leiden University, in collaboration with the Department of Criminology at VU Amsterdam. Over the past ten years, the roughly 400 companies to…

At LUCIS we offer a varied programme of scholarly meetings (conferences, workshops) which reflect our multidisciplinary and comparative view on Islam and Muslim societies in past and present.

On 30 November 2019, the event ‘Bogus constructions and intra EU migrants (working in the Netherlands)' took place. This very successful seminar was organized in spirit of the project Solidarity Under Strain (SOLID), part of the research focus area ILS 2.0.

In many European countries, the amount of a fine is based on the level of your income. This already exists in Finland, Sweden, Germany, France, and Spain. The Dutch Lower House is now contemplating the introduction of such a system.

Why are so many people killed on the Caribbean islands? And how can we reduce this number? Scientists aim to find answers to these questions by means of a databank. That could help justice and police on the islands to reduce the number of murders.

Last week Elsevier published the results of a survey among academy professors and teachers, asking what according to them was the best place to study in their profession. As for Mathematics, Leiden turned out to rank highest.

If you have a plan that could improve the education or the learning environment of the Faculty of Humanities in terms of diversity or inclusion, you can apply for a grant from the faculty’s JEDI Fund. This year, Nasreen has been helping to develop a new syllabus for the first-year Ancient History co…

Met groot plezier heeft de Universiteit Leiden van 1 tot 4 november het X Congreso Internacional de la Asociación de Hispanistas del Benelux (AHBx) georganiseerd, met het thema Transhispanismos: contactos y contagios (Transhispanismes: contact en besmetting). De AHBx is een platform in de Benelux dat…

State secretary Mona Keijzer received the National Agenda on Quantum Technology from Robbert Dijkgraaf on 16 September. With this agenda, Dutch knowledge institutes and high-tech companies identify what is needed to maintain and strengthen the Dutch pioneering role in this area. Researchers from Leiden…

PhD defence

PhD defence

PhD defence

Cosine Marco Beijersbergen has been appointed as one of the distinguished 62 fellows of the Netherlands Academy of Engineering (NAE). With these fellows, the NAE emphasises the importance of technological innovation for sustainable social change. The inauguration is on 13 November.

On 16 February, Leiden University participated in the Dutch National Rounds of the 2024 Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition, the world's largest moot court competition featuring participants from approximately 700 law schools across the world.

Inaugural lecture

How do insurance products transform intimate and personal relations? What are the consequences of the classifications that insurance companies use and how do these affect solidarity, morality and inequality?

What follows is a survey of existing programs and current projects for each of the participating universities.

In our HANDS!Lab for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies, we run projects pertaining to sign language linguistics with a focus on Africa. In addition, we are running projects on sign language teaching, tactile signing, deaf people’s experiences with the legal system, and deaf history.

This Panel at the Historians of Netherlandish Art Conference (Amsterdam, 2-5 June 2021) aims to explore how early modern individuals and groups branded themselves through their heraldic presentation on contemporary social media and materials. Although this call for papers focuses on the period 1500-1800,…

In the summer of 2019, South African student Tarryn Abrahams was awarded a scholarship from the Mandela Scholarship Fund. She is now spending a semester in Leiden, and following four courses at Leiden Law School. ‘I’m learning to engage more in lectures.’

Russia correspondent Eva Hartog took a Master’s in Political Philosophy in Leiden in 2011. This former editor-in-chief of The Moscow Times sees this short period as a new chapter in her life. And she is once again contemplating her future now she can no longer ask the big questions in Russia.

Only 27 per cent of Dutch households are financially healthy. This appears from a joint study conducted by Deloitte, ING, NIBUD and the Department of Economics of Leiden University.

Professor Geert de Snoo, Dean of the Faculty of Science at Leiden University, has been appointed Director of the Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) with effect from 1 November 2019. He will stand down from his role as Dean of the Faculty of Science with effect from 1 September. De Snoo will…

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…

PhD defence

At a time when statues of figures from history have an uncertain future Valika Smeulders has just become Head of History at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum. What changes does she want to make? And how does she look back on her Languages and Cultures of Latin America degree programme in Leiden?