Starting April 2026, Niels van Willigen will join the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University’s Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences as Professor by Special Appointment in Strategic Studies. This appointment was made possible by the Atlantische Commissie, which established this chair…

A Niels Stensen Fellowship has recently been awarded to Vestert Borger. Since the 1960s, the Fellowship is awarded each year to 6 or 7 scholars at Dutch universities across all disciplines who have recently defended their doctoral dissertation. The Fellowhip enables them to conduct research abroad at…

Dr. Bettina Reitz-Joosse, postdoctoral researcher in the Classics department, has received a Niels Stensen Fellowship.

Twice a year, Gert Renkema, Head of Financial and Economic Affairs at FGGA, provides us with an update on the faculty’s finances. This time, he sits down with Niels Laurens, Director of Operations, over a cup of coffee and tea to share the results of the past year and the financial outlook.

Professor Niels Blokker, Schermers Chair and Professor of International Institutional Law, and Dr Brian McGarry, Assistant Professor of Public International Law (Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies), organised a first-of-its-kind conference at the headquarters of the International Criminal…

The Dick Stufkens Prijs 2010 is awarded to Dr. Niels Elders. The prize is given by the Holland Research School of Molecular Chemistry for his Ph.D. thesis “Multicomponent Approaches to Molecular Diversity & Complexity”, in which he describes the development of various new multi-component synthetic procedures…

Leiden professor of molecular astrophysics and astrochemistry Ewine van Dishoeck was presented with the Niels Bohr International Gold Medal on Friday 7 October. The medal, instigated by the Danish Society of Engineers IDA, was awarded by Queen Margrethe of Denmark at a ceremony at the Carlsberg Academy…

Archival research, which student of history has not done it? Many of us have spent days in brick buildings with artificial lights, staring at ancient documents with unreadable handwritten texts, hoping to find something that is useful. To some, this may sound dreadful, but to us? We love this stuff!…

To support interdisciplinary research on today's world-scale changes and governing challenges, the GTGC programme awards a number of seed grants to scholars at Leiden University collaborating across different faculties and institutes.

Seventeenth-century Danish scientist Niels Stensen made groundbreaking discoveries in the anatomy of the body and of Earth. This Leiden alumnus’s theories are still relevant, as an exhibition at the Oude UB shows.

What would it be like if you could work with the best in your field every day? Alumnus in International Studies Niels Drost knows just what that’s like. He currently works as a junior researcher at the Clingendael Institute.

Niels Laurens recently started as the new Director of Operations at the Faculty of Archaeology as well as the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs. We sat down with him for an interview on his background, his drive, and his take on archaeology. ‘My main drive is to enable researchers and lecturers…

On Monday 26 June Willy de Heer and Niels Blokker presented their research at the last ILS Luch Seminar before summer

The balance is positive: the faculty is growing faster than expected, reserves have been built up, and new programmes are attracting many students. At the same time, rapid growth requires realistic budgets, targeted staff expansion and agility in changing circumstances.

Leiden University researchers Gisela Hirschmann (Political Science) and Niels van Doesum (Psychology) have been awarded a LUF/Gratama grant for their research on the effects of musical peacebuilding initiatives. When ‘enemies’ make music together, does that change the image they have of one another?…

One of our most engaged and expert scholars is bidding farewell. After forty years at Leiden Law School, first as a student and later as a professor, Niels Blokker reflects on his university career.

The new Hugo Weiland Thesis Prize of the Foundation for Austrian Studies is a prize in honour of the long time effort and incentive for the foundation of Mr Weiland and is to be awarded to successful theses dedicated to topics that relate to the history, culture, and politics of Austria and Central…

On the 12th of December, Eleanor Dutton successfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Eleanor on this achievement.

Niels Laurens (37) has been appointed Executive Director at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs since 1 October. Because of covid 19, he only saw most of his colleagues within the faculty through a screen. Although the online introductions go well for him, Niels Laurens lacks personal contact…

Vocal learning is a trait shared by songbirds and humans. It is also a trait that is restricted by the brain rather than by a species' vocal apparatus. In this dissertation, functional MRI is employed in both species in order to explore potential common neural mechanisms underlying the ability to develop…

Archaeological and related essays on the Jordan Valley in honour of Gerrit van der Kooij on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday

Tonal bilinguals of two closely related Chinese dialects are amazing people. They handle two tonal systems in their mind; their two vocabularies are from closely related dialects, and they write translation equivalents with common Chinese characters. Their unique language situation makes their mind…

Political scientists Huib Pellikaan and Niels van Willigen (Leiden University) use and elaborate on the theoretical insights from game theory in order to understand nuclear security in changing environment. Now that the relations between the US and Russia have deteriorated and smaller nuclear states…