On Friday 29 August 2025, 370 students received their Bachelor's degree in International Studies. The diplomas were awarded in the historic setting of the Pieterskerk in Leiden. Family members, friends, and staff gathered to celebrate this joyous occasion with the graduates in a packed Pieterskerk.

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.

Floris de Ruiter recently joined the Institute for History as a PhD candidate, as part of Carolien Stolte's VIDI project 'Peace Palms. International Coalitions for Peace in the Era of Decolonization, 1918-1970'. The project runs alongside Carolien Stolte's ERC project 'Reconciling Peace: International…

How can I get students to collaborate more and increase their engagement? That was the question that teacher, and winner of the 2022 Faculty Teaching Award, Astrid Van Weyenberg asked herself two years ago. Her solution? A method in which the use of podcasts ensures that students actively engage with…

Exam, paper, exam, paper. A familiar, though sometimes little unexciting, routine for students. That is why Film and Literary students Sietske de Haan and Wouter Dijkman decided to write a blog post for the course Interculturality. Their impressive achievement was rewarded with a publication on science…

On Monday 26 August, students were warmly welcomed at the Wijnhaven location with a blue carpet and live music. Accompanied by their friends and family, they gathered to receive their BSc Security Studies diploma.

Professor Peter Bisschop has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant. He will invest the 2.5 million euros in his research into puranas: ancient texts, commonly written in Sanskrit, that are up to fifteen hundred years old.

Graduating in international law and fulfilling a childhood dream by performing your own theatre show. Alumna Fleur Verhoeff has achieved both. How did she go from studying law to the performing arts? And how does her background in international law help?

Gert Oostindie is Professor Emeritus of Colonial and Postcolonial History at Leiden University and former Director of the KITLV / Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies.

Sarah Cramsey's first book, Uprooting the Diaspora: Jewish Belonging and the "Ethnic Revolution" in Poland and Czechoslovakia, 1936-1946, has won the 2024 Kulczycki Book Prize in Polish Studies.

On April 14, 2025, Dr. Hans Petschar, the recently-retired Director of the Bildarchiv und Grafiksammlung at the Austrian National Library in Vienna, delivered the Sixth Annual Austrian Studies Lecture 'Austria’s Present Past: A visual journey through Austrian history 1925 – 2025'.

Peter Pels, affiliated with the Institute of Cultural Anthropology of Leiden University, is one of the researchers. Together with Birgit Meyer (UU), he will lead the work package 'Heritage and the Question of Conversion'.

Education, Research

Huub Rottgering's main research interest is in observational studies of active galaxies, clusters and large scale structures in the distant universe with the aim of understanding their origin and evolution.

Paul Nieuwbeerta is full Professor of Criminology at the Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology of Leiden University since 2009.

Alessandro Aleo is a PhD candidate at Leiden University and Delft University of Technology.

Until December 2017 Professor and Head of the Department Molecular Cell Biology, member board LUMC Division 4, coordinator research profile Biomedical Imaging. Additional professorship Science Faculty Leiden (since 2012), Medical Delta professor at TU Delft (2013) and member of the executive board of…

I am a PhD candidate at the IBL in the group of Prof. Ákos T. Kovács, where I study how circadian clocks shape interactions between the beneficial soil bacterium Bacillus subtilis and the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, using molecular biology and microscopy approaches.

Jan Crijns (1978) is Professor of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure at the Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology of Leiden University. From 15 February 2024, he holds the position of Vice Dean of Leiden Law School.

Hilde Wermink is Associate Professor of Criminology at the Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology at Leiden University. She is also the PhD dean of Leiden Law School.

Piet van der Graaf was appointed as Professor of Systems Pharmacology in 2012. He is also Vice President and Head of Quantitative Systems Pharmacology (QSP) at Certara.

Silvère M. van der Maarel is professor of Medical Epigenetics and Chair of the department of human genetics. He is coordinator of the LUMC medical research profile Translational Neuroscience and coordinator of the Leiden University research focus area Bioscience: the science base of health. He is also…

Steffie van Gompel is a researcher at the Institute for Area Studies.

Michiel Hogerheijde is an Associate Professor at Leiden University. His research focuses on the origin of planetary systems such as our own Solar System and the systems that are now commonly found around other stars.

Elena Maria Rossi obtained her PhD at the University of Cambridge with her thesis “Structure and energy content of gamma-ray burst jets”. She held a Chandra Fellowship at University of Colorado and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Currently, she is Full Professor at the…

Ewine van Dishoeck researches molecules in space. She has gained world fame with her pioneering work. Her current passion is the hunt for water and the water cycle in space. This will provide answers to questions such as: where does the water in our rivers come from? And: could there be life on other…

With this podcast series 'Introduction to Security Studies', you will get to know more about the bachelor's programme Security Studies at Leiden University in The Hague and life as a student in The Hague.

This year on June 8-12, the Annual Convention of the Austrian and Central European Centres was organised in Leiden. At this convention, directors and (PhD) students from all over the world come together to meet, have presentations by the students on their topics of expertise, and to get the know the…

Lecture

Dr Jessie Pool is Associate Professor of Insolvency Law at the Institute for Private Law (Department of Corporate Law) at Leiden University. Her expertise lies at the intersection of insolvency and corporate law, with a focus on socially relevant issues such as sustainability in insolvency proceedings,…

Patrick Dassen is a guest at the Institute for History.

To truly understand Dutch literature, we have to look beyond borders. At least, that is the view of Sander Bax. From 1 August, he will be Professor of Contemporary Dutch Literature and Culture in a Transnational Dynamic.