Kees Goudswaard has been appointed as a board member of the GAK Institute on 1 October.

Turkish and Syrian students met Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl to discuss how the university can support students who have been affected by the earthquake.

The greatest challenges facing humanity today have significant global dimensions that require substantial policy responses at a planetary scale. In this context, the Multistakeholder Global Governance (MGG) project aims to understand to what extent and under what circumstances multistakeholder global…

Marileen Dogterom, Professor bionanoscience in Delft and Professor molecular physics in Leiden, will take a seat at the KNAW board as of June 1st. She is appointed for four years, one day per week. Dogterom succeeds Nobel Prize winner Ben Feringa, who completed his term.

The Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) alliance signed a collaboration agreement with the Indonesian Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Technology on 23 September.

Three new initiatives will provide a more diverse view of Leiden’s academic history, literally and figuratively: a historical study on the background of students and scientists, a new book about the Academy Building, and two new sculptures of female scientists, Ewine van Dishoek, Professor of Molecular…

On 2 December, the Municipality of Leiden will apologise for the role previous administrations played in colonialism and slavery. A further study will be carried out.

In January 2020, the team took a break from their respective field sites and travelled back to Leiden to take stock of their research progress and to host its third Advisory Board meeting at their home institution, the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology of Leiden Universit…

Leiden University, together with the Open University and Universities of the Netherlands, will take up residence in the Spui building at Grote Marktstraat 48-50/Spui 3 in downtown The Hague from 2025. The partners signed the leases on 7 November.

In late May 2019, the Food citizens? team traveled to Poland for a project meeting and team outing. This was made possible by the European Research Council’s support and facilitated networks and knowledge-generation.

Mariana Gkliati co-organised and chaired on 14 September a PhD Masterclass with the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Agnès Callamard.

On Tuesday 2 April Vice President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, came to Leiden to receive the Plastic Avengers Manifest from Plastic Soup Surfer Merijn Tinga. The Manifest contains five key areas for a new approach to deal with how we use plastic.

The university is home to many pearls of research institutes that do not make the news every day. The Executive Board visited one such pearl, the Institute of Philosophy, on Tuesday 1 July. It resulted in an inspired conversation.

Black-and-white photographs filled with solemn young men and distinguished professors line the walls of the Grand Auditorium. Young women are missing from the photos; women rarely obtained PhDs 50 years ago. And this article is about that group, the PhD candidates between 1966 and 1972, who were invited…

The Durham Declaration was presented at the Climate Symposium marking the Coimbra Group’s 40th anniversary on 26 March. Leiden University is proud to be one of the first signatories of this declaration.

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) comprises several units. Eight Divisions for Sciences develop new research programmes, assess subsidy requests and monitor projects that NWO finances. ALW- Earth and Life Sciences is one of NWO’s eight Divisions for Science. Professor Melly…

On 1 July, Olga Zoutendijk will become a member of the Board of Governors of Leiden University. Zoutendijk (1961) was appointed by the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, and will succeed Mirjam Sijmons. Sijmons is leaving after two periods of membership of the Board of Governors.

Over 30 ambassadors strengthened their ties with researchers and university leaders in a recent visit to Leiden University. Cross-border collaboration (both literal and figurative) was the theme of presentations and a tour of the Hortus botanicus.

Of the women studying at university, 52% have experienced some form of sexual harassment. For male students, the figure is 19%.

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

This study examined the effects of a classroom-focused intervention on different domains of early literacy. The intervention consisted of shared e-book reading combined with a print referencing technique done via a SMART board. The specific goal of the study was to examine whether children could be…

Professor Bert Meijer has been reappointed as a member of Leiden University’s Board of Governors by the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Ingrid van Engelshoven.

What is the significance of the history of slavery for our present-day society? A special exhibition in the inner courtyard of the Academy Building features eleven insightful portraits of students and staff, and their answer to this question. The aim of the exhibition’s initiators is to make the subject…

Ymre Schuurmans, Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, has been appointed Chair of the Dutch Legal Aid Board’s Advisory Council following permission from the Dutch Minister for Legal Protection.

Confetti cannons announced the opening of HUBspot, the new venue for innovation and entrepreneurship at the Langegracht in Leiden, on 31 October. But all attention was on the young student entrepreneurs who presented their businesses.

How has evolution shaped our curiosity? And how does that curiosity ensure that we now have the technological ability to discover whether we are alone in the universe? This was all covered during the celebration of Leiden University’s 449th Dies Natalis.

No procession of professors, just a handful of people in the church and snowdrifts outside Leiden’s Pieterskerk: 8 February 2021 was no ordinary Dies Natalis. Carel Stolker transferred the rectorate to Hester Bijl, and Annetje Ottow became the new President of the Executive Board. With an honorary doctorate…

The importance of science communication and cross-boundary collaboration, and the ‘mantra’ of diminishing social cohesion in society: these all came up at Leiden University’s 448th Dies Natalis. A panel discussion including Leiden’s mayor Lenferink, music and two honorary doctorates completed the special…

Young Academy Leiden (YAL) will change its board this month and welcome seven brand-new members.

An extra-long cortège, three honorary doctorates, a quiz about 450 years of university history, a Dies Natalis rap and a call to defend academic freedom: these all featured in Leiden University’s 450th Dies Natalis celebration and the official start of its jubilee year.

A.F. (Ab) van der Touw (1955) is to become the new Chairman of the Board of Governors of Leiden University. Jet Bussemaker, Minister of Education, Culture and Science (OCW), has appointed him from 1 September 2016 for a period of four years. Van der Touw succeeds Nout Wellink whose term of office comes…

At the end of April 2023, two new Editors joined the Editorial Board of Common Market Law Review: Eleanor Spaventa from Bocconi University and Sara Iglesias Sánchez from Complutense University of Madrid. On this occasion, the Editorial Board held its regular Editorial Board meeting in Milan, Italy.…

Brian McGarry and Cecily Rose, both affiliated with the Grotius Centre, are members of an adjudicative body established under the auspices of the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA). NSPA is ‘NATO’s lead organization for multinational acquisition, support and sustainment’ for the 32 NATO nations,…

Rembrandt Year is concluding with a major exhibition at Museum De Lakenhal. There are still numerous other activities such as lectures, the University Rembrandt Route and the screening of a critical documentary.

Maartje van der Woude, Professor of Law and Society at the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society, has been elected, after a vote among the members of the Law and Society Association (LSA), as one of the eight ‘elected trustees’ to join the ‘Board of Trustees’ of the LSA.

Dr. Stephan Hacker, an assistant professor in the department of Molecular Physiology at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry of Leiden University has been elected secretary of the board of APNet, the Assistant Professor Network Netherlands. Hacker will take a leading role in the young network organisation…

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.

Alumni who live and work in Brussels met on 18 February at the annual Leiden Alumni in Brussels Event. As well as celebrating Leiden University’s 450th anniversary, they also looked at the challenges Europe faces.

Even as a child, Jan Willem Erisman wanted to make things better. As a professor Environmental sustainability, he is therefore also very active outside the university. He is known as the nitrogen professor: in the media all the way to the House of Representatives, he explains the nitrogen problem. Recently,…

Statement from the Editorial Board of the Common Market Law Review regarding the UK Brexit referendum campaign:

On the day of the Dies Natalis, Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker starts his second term of office. How does he look back on the first four years, and what are his plans? These are the questions asked of him by Mayor Lenferink, student of public administation Mikal Tseggai, Professor Eveline Crone and…

The International Institute of Air and Space Law is very proud to announce that Judge Peter Tomka has accepted the position of chairman of its International Advisory Board. During the Board meeting on 15 November 2017, Judge Tomka officially succeeded Professor Laurens Jan Brinkhorst as chairman of…

Today, the Dutch Advisory Board on public access and government information (ACOI) issued its opinion on how the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) makes documents on Covid policy accessible to the public.

On 28 February, Professor E.W. Meijer, member of Leiden University’s Board of Governors, was appointed Commander in the Order of the Dutch Lion.

Nieuwscheckers, a team of journalist fact-checkers from Leiden University, received the Mr. K.J. Cath Prize at the opening of the academic year on 5 September. This biennial prize is awarded to students or staff who have enhanced the University’s good name.

Leiden University has had a campus in The Hague for over 20 years and sees the city as its second hometown.

As of today, Maartje van der Woude (Professor of Sociology of Law, Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance & Society) has become a member of the advisory board for Oxford Law’s research platform Border Criminologies.

Under a typically grey sky, more than 1,300 international students gather around the mentors with their numbered signposts. It is the start of the Orientation Week Leiden: the introduction week specially for international students at Leiden University.