Sending migrants back. Open borders. These are the kinds of words that are used, but what does the situation really look like at these borders? Professor of Law and Society Maartje van der Woude, an expert in crimmigration, is researching precisely this.

For his ground-breaking chemical biological research, a VICI-grant has been awarded to Mario van der Stelt, professor of Molecular physiology at Leiden University. In a new research line, he aims to discover binding sites for new medicines against inflammations in the brain.

Through its launch of Instagram Teens, Instagram promises to create a safe environment for teenagers by introducing age restrictions. But is it actually going to improve the mental health of young people? And is the feature that allows parents to monitor their teenagers’ use of Instagram even legal?

Half april verschijnt bij uitgeverij Walburg Pers: Jacob van Maerlant, Der Naturen Bloeme. Uit het Middelnederlands vertaald door Ingrid Biesheuvel.

On 21 June, our beloved colleague Joan van der Waals passed away after a long and rewarding life.

Didactics

‘A woman with a mission’. In this honourable way, Dean Geert de Snoo described computer scientist Felienne Hermans at the official opening of her new research group Programming Education Research Lab (PERL). He is right: Felienne has a very important mission. With her new research group, she will do…

Dr Joris van der Voet has been awarded a Veni grant of € 250,000 for his research into the working of savings strategies on innovation with municipalities. Van der Voet (Institute of Public Administration) compares Dutch municipalities with those in Spain and the United Kingdom. He explains by answering…

Leiden University has awarded its prestigious University Medal to Emeritus Professor Lex van der Eb. As a pioneer in genetics and molecular biology, he received this honour for his services to science and his key role in the development of the Leiden Bio Science Park (LBSP).

Maurijn van der Zee, at the IBL since 2010, investigates how genetic changes in developmental programs lead to new animal forms in evolution, using insects as model system. His field of research is called evolutionary developmental biology. Currently, he is working on the success and diversity of the…

Every year a photographer portrays Leiden as Stadsfotograaf (City Photographer) of the Leidsch Dagblad. This year it is the honor to Leonie van der Helm, an alumna of cultural anthropology. Over the next 52 weeks, Van der Helm will visualize the meaning of 'home'.

Jojanneke van der Toorn has been proclaimed the young and promising researcher of 2015. At the official opening of the academic year on 31 August she was awarded the Gratama Science Award for emerging talent.

Donderdag 7 februari is prof. mr. dr. P.F. van der Heijden benoemd tot Officier in de Orde van Oranje-Nassau. Hij kreeg de koninklijke onderscheiding uit handen van minister Koolmees van Sociale Zaken.

The energy transition is already a huge challenge for society, but sustainable use of resources is even more complicated. Yet it is at least as urgent. Ester van der Voet has been working on it for decades, for example within the United Nations. Since February, she is a professor at the Centre for Environmental…

‘It was a complete surprise to me to find the Emerald Citation of Excellence certificate in my pigeonhole,’ says Natascha van der Zwan. Her article ‘Making sense of Financialization’ has received an honourable mention from Emerald Publishing because it is used all over the world for research and edu…

Hoogleraar Law & Society Maartje van der Woude is door de Universitas Indonesia in Jakarta gevraagd om een lezing te geven ter gelegenheid van de 96e dies natalis van de Indonesische universiteit.

Jojanneke van der Toorn appears in several media trying to bridge science and society with the aim of contributing to effective and evidence-based diversity policy. Read more in English and Dutch media.

Mario van der Stelt has been appointed Professor of Molecular Physiology at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry with effect from 1 November 2017.

Professor of Law and Society Maartje van der Woude (37) is one of the four young scientists who have been awarded a 2018 Heineken Young Scientists Award. Van der Woude is receiving the award in the field of Humanities for her research on the interplay between law and the public debate on such themes…

In its ruling this week, The Hague Court of Appeal made short work of how the Dutch Border Police allow the colour of a person’s skin to be taken into account when selecting people to check. According to Maartje van der Woude, this ruling reaches far beyond the border police. ‘This is a problem for…

Patrick van der Meij has been appointed Professor of Criminal Law Practice at the Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology from 1 January 2024. This is an Endowed Chair established by the Professor A. E. J. Modderman Foundation, which is affiliated with Leiden University in order to boost research…

The winner of the Leiden University Thesis Prize has made an original and substantial contribution to argumentation theory. This is what Annetje Ottow, President of the Executive Board and member of the LUF board, said at the online ceremony for the University’s thesis prizes. The winner of the first…

On 29 March Stéphanie van der Pas receives the Willem R. van Zwet Award during the Annual Meeting of the Netherlands Society of Statistics and Operations Research.

Maartje van der Woude, Professor of Law and Society, was a guest on NPO Radio 1 programme 'Spraakmakers' to talk about more border fences on the EU’s external borders and the usefulness of such measures. She was also a guest on 'Vroeg!' to discuss a court case about ethnic profiling.

After four years of hard work, the time has finally come: your thesis is finished. But who of your family and friends will ever read it? Biologist Lizah van der Aart decided to make a magazine for layman. 'It was precisely the explanation of the difficult, fundamental parts that gave me good tools for…

Alderman Robert Strijk from the Leiden municipality officially opened the artwork Whispering Wind by Edwin van der Heide on Wednesday November 29.

Prof. dr. Joanne van der Leun is tot september 2025 door het College van Bestuur van de Universiteit Leiden herbenoemd als decaan van de faculteit Rechtsgeleerdheid.

Nienke van der Marel has been awarded the New Horizons Prize in physics for her pioneering research on planet formation. This prize is given to young, promising researchers in physics or mathematics. The astronomer and her colleagues found the first observational evidence for 'dust traps' in disks around…

Frank van der Horst is per 1 februari 2026 benoemd tot bijzonder hoogleraar Pedagogische Wetenschappen.

From 1 January 2017 Jojanneke van der Toorn will be the first holder of the Workplace Pride special chair, with a focus on the inclusion of people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT). This new chair is a joint initiative of the Workplace Pride Foundation, Leiden University, and the…

Ineke van der Ham is one of the invited speakers at the European Workshop of Imagery and Cognition (EWIC). She discussed practical applications of her work on spatial imagery in neuropsychological patients.

Ineke van der Ham is a guest in the national tv show Tijd voor Max, where she discusses the nationwide experiment on navigation.

Professor Maartje van der Woude of the Van Vollenhoven Institute delivered a special Dies Lecture in San Francisco on Wednesday 12 February.

On 24 November 2022, Simone van der Hof delivered the annual Mulock Houwer Lecture. The title of the lecture was ‘Niet om de knikkers maar om het spel – Over de digitale versie van een vergeten kinderrecht’.

Professor of Law and Society Maartje van der Woude has been appointed as a Mercator Fellow at the University of Göttingen’s research group Mobility Rights in the Global Context of Multiple Crises, which studies human rights and migration in times of crisis.

Excessive remuneration of top executives often sparks heated debate in the Netherlands. Ministers are summoned to Parliament, where they then tend to wholeheartedly condemn the 'grabbing' going on at the top of the corporate sector. But that’s where it stops. Tackling excessive remuneration seems to…

The book ‘The Riemann Hypothesis: A Million Dollar Problem’ has been elected by the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) as one of the best books on mathematics. On 13 January assistant professor at Leiden University Roland van der Veen and co-author Jan van de Craats will receive the MAA Beckenbach…

Together with three other scholars Adriaan van der Weel successfully applied for a COST research network subsidy.

October 4-7 2018, the Nationale Spoorwegen organized its annual stationslab, with interactive science at Utrecht Central Station. This year's theme is navigation at the trainstation. Ineke van der Ham opened this event and joined a podcast on wayfinding behavior at trainstations.

We received the sad news that Janet van der Meulen passed away on November 29. She was an expert on French and Dutch literature in the medieval Low Countries. An in memoriam (in Dutch) has been published on the website of Neerlandistiek.

My research addresses the function of the much-debated particle -nā in Biblical Hebrew, often translated with “please”, from the point of view of the most important ancient Bible translations (Greek, Syriac, Latin). It combines textual criticism, translation technique, discourse pragmatics, and the…

Political scientists Tom van der Meer, Lisa Janssen (University of Amsterdam) and Tom Louwerse (Leiden University) analyse polls presented by the main polling agencies in the Netherlands, as well as micro-level panel data. They reach three main conclusions. First, vote intention polls in the Netherlands…

Professor Jojanneke van der Toorn has held the chair in LGBT workplace inclusion for five years. To celebrate, organised an international online conference on workplace inclusion, in cooperation with Workplace Pride that was hosted by the university on 20 and 21 May.

Criminals? They are always men. At least, that’s what we tend to think. Historian Manon van der Heijden wants to show, however, that between 1600 and 1900 in Europe, women were responsible for a substantial share of the criminal activity. She has been granted a VICI award for her research.

Professor of Law and Society Maartje van der Woude (Van Vollenhoven Institute) will be visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Law & Society at the University of California in Berkeley for the next 6 months.

From 25 to 31 October, Professor Simone van der Hof was on a working visit to China with a delegation from Leiden Law School, including our dean Professor Joanne van der Leun.