Alisa van de Haar is one of three humanities scholars to win a KNAW Early Career Award this year. The university lecturer of Ancient French Literature is receiving the award for her innovative research on multilingualism and migration. 'It would be nice to use this to set up a project with students.…

Universitair docent immigratierecht, Mark Klaassen, zegt in een uitzending van RTL-nieuws dat de voorlopige verkiezingsuitslag weinig directe invloed zal hebben op de asielinistroom. ‘Ongeacht welke partij de grootste wordt, kan Nederland weinig veranderen in hoeverre mensen hier nationale bescherming…

At least 27 migrants died on 24 November after their boat capsized in the Channel between France and England.

The British police discovered 39 bodies in the back of a lorry earlier this month. The refrigeration unit in which the bodies were found had entered the United Kingdom via Belgium.

Migrants are expensive. Or are they? Professor Olaf van Vliet collaborated on a big research project from Leiden University to map the costs of migration. During the last episode of this season of the podcast Open Geesten (Open Minds), he talks about the initial results. Do migrants really put a lot…

The EU is struggling with labour shortages. Migrant workers and asylum seekers would be able to fill this gap and solve many of these problems. But, says economics professor Olaf van Vliet, the pros and cons regarding this dilemma need to be explicitly addressed. 'Now the message in campaigns focusses…

Moritz Jesse and Elena Kukovica attended the 2024 IMISCOE Annual Conference in Lisbon which was held from 2 to 5 July 2024.

Ontwikkelingshulp- en migratiedeskundigen zien dat er lessen zijn geleerd in het nieuwe regeerakkoord op het gebied van asielbeleid. Maar aan veel toezeggingen kleven cynische voorwaarden.

Failed asylum seekers do not often return to their country of origin. The European Commission sees ‘return hubs’ as a solution. Dr Mark Klaassen discussed the proposal on ‘EenVandaag’: ‘I can imagine that such a return hub will act as an incentive.'

This spring, Fordham Press will publish the book “Crimmigrant Nations: Resurgent Nationalism and the Closing of Borders”.

A tv crew from Euronews came to Leiden to interview Eugenio Cusumano about his work on migrant rescue operations in the Mediterranean. Eugenio is an expert on international relations.

Social scientists from Leiden University have worked with an international team to create teaching modules on migration.

Archaeologist Jason Laffoon was awarded an NWO Vidi grant for an innovative investigation into ancient migrations in the western Caribbean. The innovative character of this research project lies in the wide-scale application of isotope analysis and isotope mapping. ‘We aim at further developing methods…

On Wednesday 11 October 2017 the African Studies Centre Leiden and the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society are organizing a workshop.

No evidence found that increasing migration leads to an increase in politically and ideologically motivated criminality. Migration flows have, however resulted in increased polarisation in the Netherlands.

History can be found in utensils and in interviews with ordinary citizens. ‘With the reconstruction of everyday life, an anthropological approach works better,’ thinks historian Jan-Bart Gewald. Inaugural lecture on 6 June.

Researcher and lecturer Susana Valdez investigates how migrants make use of online translation technology in medical situations. Her research suggests that they often encounter obstacles when using machine translation in these settings. Potential problems include a lack of understanding or trust.

International experts from several academic disciplines came to Leiden on Friday 8 and Saturday 9 December 2017 to participate in the international conference 'The

Migration, globalisation, technological developments, climate change: the greatest challenges of our time all affect our labour market. But how exactly? And can we influence this? Professor of Economics Olaf van Vliet regards it as his job to reveal how things really are. ‘That way, we can work on solutions…

The Modern Migration Policy Act aims to ensure that the admission of regular migrants is effective and manageable.

After the Second World War almost three million people emigrated from the Netherlands to countries such as Canada and Australia. The government information was anything but objective, Professor by Special Appointment of Dutch Studies/Dutch Literature Ton van Kalmthout concludes in his inaugural lect…

White girls receive significantly more positive comments from their teachers in their primary school reports than white boys and children from migrant backgrounds. PhD candidate Antoinette Kroes researched subtle biases in different contexts and saw how harmful these can be.

Are you working at Leiden University and researching migration regimes outside of the Global North? Are you interested in doing fieldwork or a research visit at one of our partner universities? Then you might want to join the Leiden team of the EU funded Marie Curie Staff Exchange Network on non western…

‘It's empty talk, nothing but political posturing,’ says Prof. Leo Lucassen about Minister Lodewijk Asscher's plan for a participation contract for migrants. ‘It will never happen.’ Lucassen, Leiden specialist in History of Migration, discussed Asscher’s Integration Letter on the NTR programme De Halve…

Are you working at Leiden University and researching migration regimes outside of the Global North? Are you interested in doing fieldwork or a research visit at one of our partner universities? Then you might want to join the Leiden team of the EU-funded Marie Curie Staff Exchange Network on non-western…

Expats in the Netherlands receive a much warmer reception than other migrants, Leiden University's Aniek Smit has discovered. ‘But municipalities need to pay more attention to the differences between expats and the effects of their presence on other residents.' PhD defence 25 January.

Endangered languages can survive if they are taught properly to new speakers, such as people with a migrant background. This is what Professor by Special Appointment Felix Ameka will say in his inaugural lecture on 30 September. Dutch people can do their bit by being less ‘polite’ to people whose mother…

Are you working at Leiden University and researching migration regimes outside of the Global North? Are you interested in doing fieldwork or a research visit at one of our partner universities? Then you might want to join the Leiden team of the EU-funded Marie Curie Staff Exchange Network on non-western…

It is often thought that immigration threatens the solidarity on which redistribution relies. But looking at the post-war period, PhD candidate Emily Anne Wolff finds that this is not the case.

In countries with complex domestic situations, citizens have little opportunity to exercise influence on governance and policy. Leiden academics research these situations and share their insights with the public, such as in Nigeria for instance. This enables the people and their communities to improve…

Many Asian countries are in a process of democratisation. The expectation was that citizens would gradually gain more control over the functioning of their elites. Experts from Leiden have concluded that this process often fails to improve the quality of the administration. They researched the nature…

Master International Relations specialisation Culture and Politics.

See below for the full programme and abstracts of all papers.

Leiden University has been promoting studies on Latin America and the Caribbean for a long time.

This collaborative project aims to explore the history of the concept “barbarism” in Europe from the 18th century to the present, with a particular emphasis on the role of literature and art in the concept’s shifting functions.

This project focuses on Dutch registration of land and people in rural Sri Lanka. How did the practice of “fixating” the fluid social relations and dynamic daily practices into categories affect family strategies of reproduction and survival?

In this project we think about the relationship between territory and contagion. Tracing the historical, political, and conceptual linkages between territorial bordering and migration on the one hand and disease related phenomena like contagion, immunity, and inoculation on the other, we ask how the…

Ratna Saptari is since 2007 Assistant Professor at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology. She has always been involved with issues of human rights and Indonesian workers' rights. This August she retired. But she won't sit still. She continues her voluntary work and wants to…

This year Elke Devroe and Moniek Akerboom organized a ‘Research Design Conference’ for students in the course ‘Research Design’ of the Master’s Crisis and Security Management (CSM). Each group competed in obtaining a (fictive) grant. Students learned to defend their proposal and make it attractive and…

Four promising young researchers from Leiden University have received a Rubicon grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This grant will enable them to gain valuable research experience at top universities abroad.

In his new book 'The Politics of Borders', Leiden political scientist Matthew Longo redefines the concept of a ‘border’.

Rebekka Grossmann awarded Gerald Westheimer Career Development Fellowship for research on the effects of migration on visual codes of global solidarity

Leiden Law School will host the LDE-Majority World Workshop titled ‘Contemporary Migrations in the Americas: Cross-Atlantic Dialogue for Socio-Spatial Justice’, taking place from 24 to 28 March 2025. This workshop will address critical challenges around migration governance and human rights.

The European Commission sees increased labour migration as a solution to the growing personnel shortages, but the Dutch Labour Inspectorate argues that this is not a tenable business model. Professor of Economics Olaf van Vliet discusses the advantages and disadvantages of labour migration for the economy…

A recent ruling by the Dutch Council of State indicates that asylum seekers may no longer be sent back to Italy. The Council of State increasingly concludes that the countries at Europe's southern and eastern external borders expose migrants to degrading treatment. This in particular is a reason for…

On Wednesday 6 September 2017 the Interest Group on Migration and Refugee Law of the European Society of International Law (ESIL/SEDI) hosted a workshop in Naples, Italy, in cooperation with the ILS 2.0 Project.

Not everyone benefits from the increased flexibility in the labour market. EU migrant workers engaged at the lower end of the employment spectrum are falling behind. According to Daniel Carter, the legal system is at fault and in his PhD thesis he explains the reasons why.

Since 1 September 2017 Aagten works at the Institute. Her main area of interest includes asylum and refugee law and therefore she will be co-teaching the courses European Asylum Law, Immigration Law (Dutch course), Migration Law and Policy in the EU and Children and Migration (Dutch course).

Pau(la) Chaves Bonilla aka La ChicaScratch is a choreographer, performance artist and queer grassroots organiser born and raised in Colombia and based in The Netherlands, co-founder of the Papaya Kuir collective led by Latinx trans and queer migrants/refugees. On the 1st and 14th of April, Paula Chaves…

In an interview with Sveriges Radio, Sweden’s national radio station, Jorrit Rijpma, Professor of European Law, spoke about European legislation concerning migration.