From academic freedom to security and medical breakthroughs: during Leiden University’s 451st Dies Natalis, the speakers reflected on the role of universities in a world of social and geopolitical tensions.

Lecture, LUCL Colloquium

Apps to help people stop smoking, eat more healthily or exercise more are everywhere. eHealth programmes are abundant, yet they are often not accessible to people with lower incomes and levels of education. For her PhD research, Isra Al-Dhahir investigated how this could be improved.

Despite an eventful afternoon – with Students for Palestine occupying the Academy Building – political scientist Hélène Landemore gave her Cleveringa Lecture as planned on 26 November. She reflected on the protest and the importance of open debate, within the university and within a democracy.

Lecture

Festival

Conference, workshop

Delft, Nov. 15th, 2022 – Today, eight professors were simultaneously inaugurated as ‘Medical Delta professors’ at Leiden University, LUMC, TU Delft, Erasmus University and/or Erasmus MC. With an appointment of two or more of these five academic institutions, they combine technology and healthcare in…

An image has great powers of persuasion. It is said that ‘a picture is worth more than a thousand words’. But these days, images can easily be manipulated with severe consequences. ‘Perhaps it’s time to reconsider the value we attach to images’, says Elize de Mul, whose PhD thesis deals with ‘digital…

eLaw is Proud to announce that our colleague Dr Constanta Rosca successfully defended her PhD thesis 'Digital Arms for Digital Consumer Harms: Mapping Legal and Technical Solutions for Dark Patterns in EU Consumer Law' on Monday 2 December 2024 at her alma mater, Maastricht University Faculty of Law…

After a gap of five years, Leiden has a new Professor of Modern China. Florian Schneider started his position on 1 September.

Tax scandals, like the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers, and the Pandora Papers, have made tax avoidance by large multinationals and rich individuals a major topic of public debate. Policymakers are pushed to close tax loopholes and reform the global tax system. But this is no easy task.

The Leiden Africa Platform is pleased to announce that a partnership agreement between Leiden University and the University of Ghana was signed in November. The University of Ghana is a strategic partner of Leiden. Earlier this year, an agreement was also signed between LDE and the University of Nairobi…

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…

A delegation from Leiden University recently embarked on a knowledge mission to various NGOs, universities and government organisations in Indonesia. New partnerships were formed and important knowledge exchanged, and researchers from Leiden gave guest lectures.

On 5 May, we celebrate the liberation of the Netherlands in 1945 and the fact that we have been able to live in freedom ever since. But what does freedom mean, and how does it relate to our safety? Various FGGA experts draw connections with their own fields of expertise.

2025 was a year full of impact and milestones for FGGA: From a record number of graduates and new programmes to international collaborations, prestigious awards and research that pushes boundaries and provides insight into current challenges.

Leiden University will award two honorary doctorates at its Dies Natalis on 9 February 2026. They will go to internet studies scholar Safiya Umoja Noble and philosopher Catherine Malabou.

Arts and culture, Studium Generale

Dutch municipalities are racing to digitalise, introducing virtual services, fraud-detection algorithms and more. The digital city may not always serve its residents. Professor Jiska Engelbert calls for civil servants who dare to push back.

Students and researches from all faculties at Leiden University are warmly invited to a lunch meeting on Monday 14 October, discussing the rise of AI and the challenges this poses for various governance structures. The event is hosted by Leiden University’s interdisciplinary programmes GTGC and SAIL…

Leiden University is expanding its educational offering in The Hague with two Dutch-taught bachelor's programmes: Economie & Samenleving and Cybersecurity & Cybercrime. These programmes address current societal issues and provide students with the opportunity to combine different disciplines to solve…

On 24 March 2023, the University of Tartu, Estonia hosted a Workshop on ‘'Algorithms, Rule of Law, and the Future of Justice: Implications in the Estonian Justice System’.

On 26 and 27 September, Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Carlotta Rigotti, Mohammed Raiz Shaffique, Marie Schwed-Shenker and Antoni Mut Piña participated in the third edition of Lawtomation Days at the IE University in Madrid.

For decades, a collection of ancient Mediterranean ceramics and artefacts served as a teaching resource for Archaeology students at the Leiden Faculty of Archaeology. Now, a selection of these objects has found a new audience at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden, where Assistant Professor…

PhD defence

Second-year MIRD students showcase their thesis research on global issues during the 2025 Thesis Symposium, bridging theory and diplomatic practice.

Universiteit Leiden en Unicef werken al 10 jaar samen om kennis over kinderrechten uit te breiden en te verspreiden. Ze verlengen deze samenwerking.

Symposium

Leiden University Libraries has been elected to the Executive Committee of the IIIF Consortium. The term of office is two years starting from January 2022.

Carlotta Rigotti, Postdoc researcher at eLaw, was invited by Conventry University to join a roundtable on policy approaches to address online and technology-facilitated violence.

Three enormous maps of China, created during the reign of three different emperors of the Qing dynasty, have now been made available in open access and are downloadable via Leiden University Libraries’ (UBL) Digital Collections. The rich maps are an early example of academic collaboration between the…

On 9 December, a lottery to conclude the first call of the Leiden University Global Fund (LUGF) Seed Fund has granted 14 project proposals €15.000. These projects will be working to enhance the relationship between Leiden University and her partners in Africa, Latin America, North East and South East…

Lecture

Research

Four years of war in Ukraine have transformed the nature of warfare, with drones, digital defence systems and improvised solutions shaping the battlefield. At a recent symposium, Dutch and Ukrainian experts discussed frontline conditions. What lessons do they see for Europe?

Dennis Broeders has been appointed 'Global Chair' at the University of Bath for the year 2023-2024.

Scientists' computers are now full of complicated 3D models, but no standard has yet been developed for exchanging the data. A new database should change this. External PhD student Liselore Tissen is receiving a grant to contribute to this on behalf of Leiden University (and TU Delft). ‘It will be great…

Research