Starting 1 October 2022, Mirjam Sombroek-van Doorn has been appointed as Professor Law and Health.

In a significant step toward restoring cultural heritage, PhD candidate Marie Kolbenstetter has played a pivotal role in repatriating a collection of 133 archaeological artefacts from the prestigious Musée du quai Branly in Paris back to their place of origin in southern Honduras. Her efforts underscore…

Marion Pluskota is the new post-doc on Manon van der Heijden's 'Crime and Gender' project.

Brian Shaev recently joined the Institute for History as a lecturer in International Studies. He introduces himself.

Bob de Brabandere discovered his deep passion for cinema through a minor in Film and Theatre Studies. He currently serves as Assistant Manager at Bioscopen Leiden and as a programmer for the Leiden International Film Festival, which commences on 9 October.

Terrorism, crisis, violence, intelligence, diplomacy, war and peace are topics that are broadly covered in ISGA's research activities. Regularly, ISGA researchers appear in international media to discuss their research expertise. This item offers an overview of non-Dutch and non-English articles and…

Leiden patriot Pieter Vreede fought for greater popular influence. Historian Dirk Alkemade reveals how this pioneer used radical means to shape Dutch democracy.

Aleydis Nissen was awarded the René Cassin Thesis Prize 2021. The René Cassin Foundation - International Institute of Human Rights organises the competition. This Prize is awarded to the best PhD theses on human rights.

When Petra Sijpesteijn became a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, she was the only Dutch member with an appointment at a Dutch university. Two years later, she is also the only Dutch member of the Austrian Academy and officially joined the British Academy on 7 October.

Elise Darras studeert aan het Leiden University College (LUC) en be besloot een maand lang stage te lopen in Frankrijk bij H2Air.

The French political theorist Hélène Landemore has been appointed as the new Cleveringa Professor. She will deliver her inaugural lecture on 26 November.

Language is omnipresent: when you talk, app or meet in Teams. Understanding how we communicate with one another and what communication does to us is essential. In her inaugural lecture, Nivja de Jong will call to redress the balance between the sciences and the humanities.

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

Europe lives! This became clear last Friday when students debated with the French ambassador to the Netherlands, H.E. Luis Vassy, and his German colleague, H.E. Dirk Brengelmann, on a range of topics relating to Franco-German relations and the European Union.

Leiden University is featured by French magazine L’Express as one of Europe’s leading ‘schools of power’, highlighting its Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs and the Institute of Security and Global Affairs in The Hague and its role in training future leaders in politics, diplomacy, and securi…

Pavel Durov, CEO of chat and messaging app Telegram, was arrested in France last week. The Russian tech billionaire flew into Paris by private jet and was arrested on suspicion of cybercrimes. Telegram allegedly facilitates criminal activities such as money laundering. This raises the question of how…

From Monday 19 July onwards, eighteen children between the ages of 10 and 12 are learning the programming language Hedy. In the Snellius building of Leiden University they will be taught the first principles of programming this week.

LiDAR, a laser-based remote sensing technology, is transforming archaeology by uncovering hidden landscapes beneath forests, vegetation, and shallow waters. Though initially designed for land management, its applications in archaeology have grown rapidly.

Misleading social media posts are falsely claiming that the Dutch supermarket chain Jumbo uses facial recognition at self-service checkouts. Jumbo denies this, although it has launched trials with AI cameras to combat shoplifting without using facial recognition.

From 24 March 2021, Professor Luuk van Middelaar will deliver four public lectures on 'Geopolitical Europe: Acts and words' at the Collège de France in Paris, on the invitation of the Chairholder on International Institutional Law, Professor Samantha Besson.

On 4 December Professor Emile van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal passed away. Van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal worked at the African Studies Centre from 1967 to 2002, when the ASC was not part of Leiden University yet. He became professor by special appointment at Leiden University on behalf of Leiden Law School in…

Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijn, PhD candidate at ISGA, explained the dilemma countries face in the aftermath of terror attacks.

On 8 July 2021, The Francophone Association of Ombudspersons (L’Association des Ombudsmans et des Médiateurs de la Francophonie (AOMF)) launched their online course platform (CLOM) and training course 'Faire vivre les droits de l’enfant: des clés pour l’action'.

Ivonne Koomen

On September 28, 2022, dr.ir. Mark Driessen presented a publication about the ancient Roman frontier in Jordan. Venue for the book launch was the residence of the Dutch Ambassador in Amman. The event was attended by Prince Hassan bin Talal and his wife Princess Sarvath el Hassan, members of the Jordanian…

Education

Sebastian Diessner, associate professor at the FGGA, recently appeared in an article called 'Inflation: a spring remontée des taux se dessine' (Inflation: a slow rise in rates is emerging) in the newspaper Le Figaro.

The 'deepest and sharpest' image of the Universe to date: the first photos from the new James Webb space telescope yesterday mesmerised astronomers and the public alike. Leiden Professor of Molecular Astrophysics, Ewine van Dishoeck, spoke to various media outlets about the first images, which include…

Recently, Hans-Martien ten Napel was in the news on the above subject several times.

ULLA, the European University Consortium for Pharmaceutical Sciences, is welcoming our tenth member: the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of Geneva. The School, which is heading the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Western Switzerland (ISPSO) representing several academic institutions…

Organisation

As a student, Thijs Brocades Zaalberg was primarily interested in diplomacy surrounding conflicts. Through research on peace operations and subsequently the fight against guerrillas, he became increasingly involved with the most violent aspects of colonial warfare. Per 1 September 2024 he is appointed…

Peter Stevenhagen delivered daily lectures at the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering in Lahore, in collaboration with ICTP, a well-known UNESCO institute in Trieste. The aim is to enhance it he knowledge of students from low- and middle-income countries. ‘By teaching here, I can truly…

Is it ethical to freely redistribute photographs taken in colonial contexts, historically and today? Christoph Rippe, PhD-candidate Cultural Anthropology, suggests that people might not have been always fully aware of what happened to their photographs after they were taken. 'But nowadays, with the…

Over the last 5-6 years Burkina Faso has become seriously implicated in the rapid and dramatic changes in the geopolitical situation in the Sahel. The country, once reputed for its stability and safety, has come under the spotlight for the number of violent attacks and of internally displaced people.…

Is there a place for machine translation engines like Google Translate within the Faculty of Humanities? Associate professor Lettie Dorst’s new educational website aims to help students and teachers find an answer to this question. ‘The use of AI tools, such as Bing and ChatGPT, shouldn’t be seen as…

Two statues of gorillas abducting women: they were what led PhD candidate Dick van Broekhuizen to write a new type of history of nineteenth-century sculpture. ‘If you view nineteenth-century art history from a less narrow perspective, the narrative changes completely.’ PhD ceremony on 21 June.

What once began as an assignment for a master’s course and continued as a master’s thesis, has now culminated in a substantial book. Or has it finished? Actually, for Hendrikx, this is just the beginning: ‘I can finally reap the rewards of my research.’

Rich, white, urban: Western politicians often represent a small segment of the population. Political scientist Hélène Landemore advocates for a more inclusive democracy. She will deliver the Cleveringa Lecture on November 26.

The highly successful deep-sea telescope KM3NeT can now expand both its size and scope. Using a new type of microphone for underwater use, the telescope will attempt to detect the sound produced by neutrinos as they travel through the sea. The data collected will also be of great interest to other research…

Nowadays they can cause the fall of ministers, but once upon a time receipts were a new phenomenon. Associate Professor Robert Stein is to receive a grant from NIAS to map their origins.

The highly successful deep-sea telescope KM3NeT can now expand both its size and scope. Using a new type of microphone for underwater use, the telescope will attempt to detect the sound produced by neutrinos as they travel through the sea. The data collected will also be of great interest to other research…

Social

Volgens het Europese Hof van Justitie zijn de regels van de FIFA die de basis vormen voor miljoenentransfers in het wereldwijde profvoetbal in strijd met de Europese wetgeving. Stefaan Van den Bogaert, hoogleraar Europees Recht, sprak met het AD en RTL over de mogelijke gevolgen.

The Faculty Board and the Institute of Private Law have agreed to combine the disciplines of child law, international children’s rights and health law into one Department of Child Law and Health Law.

Mirjam de Bruijn has received a funding from the Research Council of Norway for the research project called 'Decoding Digital Media in African Regions of Conflict (DDMAC)'. The project is a collaboration with colleagues from Oslomet and Simula, Norway, Utrecht University, University of Addis Abeba,…

Three Leiden students will be sharing their knowledge of history while playing video games. The livestreams are part of the ‘Streaming the Past’ project and will be available on the popular streaming platform Twitch. The first livestream will be on Thursday 20 May.

Forget Python, Java and Scratch: there is now an accessible programming language for children. This is Hedy, invented by Dr. Felienne Hermans of LIACS. Thanks to a collaboration between Jetlearn, an online programming school based in Amsterdam, and Leiden University, Hedy now has translations in Hindi…

Alumnus Théo Pavlović received the Master's Speckmann award for his thesis: PAN RECORDS - A digital journey through the ethnic music niche that was supervised by Bart Barendregt. This price is awarded to the best fieldwork reports for ethnographic fieldwork. It includes a certificate and a prize of…