In this commentary, Sabine Witting, Assistant Professor at eLaw, provides a comprehensive analysis of the Second Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

An education grant may be available for collaboration with universities outside The Netherlands. This webpage contains information about the available grants, application procedures and where to look for help and advice.

PhD, Staff

As sea levels rise and climate change speeds up, knowledge about the ocean becomes increasingly important. But how is this knowledge being created and how can we use it best to prepare for the future? To answers these questions, Jackie Ashkin studies the day-to-day work of ocean scientists from up c…

It was announced in December that a new draft urban development plan for the Humanities Campus is now ready. In drawing up this plan for the various buildings, outdoor space and traffic routes on campus, the facilities and layout of the buildings themselves were, of course, also considered. Discussions…

Europe’s security suddenly looks uncertain now President Trump has started negotiations with Putin. What does this mean for the Netherlands? What do we need to do?

On 15 December, Director of the MIVD General Jan Swillens, visited the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) to give a lecture on international intelligence cooperation together with ISGA/NLDA researcher Pepijn Tuinier. This event, co-organised by the Intelligence and Security Group and the…

The touring exhibition 'Presenting with the city' has touched down in the Lipsius Building. In the presentation, students and researchers show how their research has contributed to the city.

American anthropologist Rosemary Joyce will be awarded an honorary doctorate from Leiden University on its Dies Natalis on 8 February. Joyce has delivered important new insights into the ancient Mayan cultures of Central America.

A large group of researchers from Leiden University will convene a panel or present a paper at the 10th European Conference on African Studies (ECAS), which will take place from 25 to 28 June in Prague.

Since the publication of the article in the interdisciplinary journal Nature, over 200 news outlets have showcased the pioneering research.

Master's student Vicente Fischer de Miranda Rodrigues is the winner of the KHMW Brewer Thesis Prize for History. He was awarded the prize for his research on donatism.

K-pop band BTS joining the Korean military is a compulsory obligation, one with increased meaning as tension builds on the Korean Peninsula and around the world, postdoc Aleydis Nissen writes in an article in The Diplomat.

On 7 and 8 October, a two-day workshop will be hosted by the Van Vollenhoven Institute in collaboration with the University of Oxford’s Border Criminologies network and the Social Citizenship & Migration assisted area. The theme of the workshop will be ‘Border policing, boundary creation and emotion…

The Committee for Academic Expenditure of the Leiden University Fund (LUF) awards grants for research and education projects. They have awarded Ekaterina Pannebakker a LUF grant on behalf of Leiden Law School.

Assistant Professor Mike Schmidli has won the 2025 Faculty Teaching Prize. The Education Committee praised his commitment not only to teaching students well, but also to helping them develop into well-rounded individuals.

An interdisciplinary photo exhibition about crafts and craftsmanship in different cultures will open at Oude UB on 6 October. At the opening Fridus Steijlen will give an introduction to the Tau Tau puppets that are made in Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Debate

Whilst 2020 has been an unusual and taxing year for colleagues at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA), the Institute nevertheless can look back on an impressive range of successful grant applications during the previous year. This impressive result was achieved on top of excellent results…

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.

China is actively attempting to silence critical voices about the country, including in the Netherlands. This is the main conclusion of a report on Chinese interference and intimidation within the Dutch media landscape. The media are often not well prepared for this.

On Thursday 19 October, the Crisis and Security Management programme welcomed back six alumni for an alumni panel.

Leiden University is going to offer two new Economics degree programmes at its campus in The Hague: the bachelor’s in Economics and Society and the master’s in Public Sector Economics. The NVAO has decided to award accreditation to both programmes, which will be taught in Dutch. The bachelor’s programme…

What defence strategy should the Dutch government adopt for the next four years? Our experts advise investing in social resilience, strengthening ‘soft power’ and integrating defence awareness into education.

Wopke Hoekstra, outgoing Minister of Foreign Affairs visited Campus The Hague on 6 July to talk to students about the upcoming NATO summit in Vilnius.

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

Are you passionate about peace, justice, and democracy, and keen to get involved in The Hague’s vibrant international community? This is your chance! The Global Transformations and Governance Challenges programme is leading Leiden University's participation in the Just Peace Festival!

Matthijs van Leeuwen and Frank Takes have been appointed directors of education at LIACS as of 1 September. They will succeed Marcello Bonsangue, who has held the position since 2016. Van Leeuwen and Takes have been appointed for a period of four years.

The Russian threat to Europe, pro-Palestine protests, the passing of psychologist Andrea Evers and speculations on extraterrestrial life. These were among our most popular articles of the year.

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.

Luc Amkreutz, curator of prehistory at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden and professor of Public Archaeology at Leiden University, has a mission: to make the past accessible and relevant to a broad audience. He is the new Eugène Dubois Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Science and Engineering…

At the transition of the Neolithic to Bronze Age, a societal clash took place between a male dominated oligarchy (also known as the patriarchy) and the matriarchy. The latter managed to exploit vulnerabilities in the 'bro-code' to reboot society's operating system.

Museum Jan Cunen in Oss presents the very first retrospective exhibition of the richest graves from the early Iron Age (800-500 BC), including the one of the iconic Lord of Oss. Leiden archaeologist Richard Jansen was guest curator and the exhibition tells the story of the funeral rituals of the local…

In a New York Times report on a bitter archaeological feud over the Nebra sky disk, Maikel Kuijpers reflects on its importance. 'It’s really unfortunate if we put all our focus on one exceptional status object. I think that’s not helping our discipline.'

Researcher Femke Reidsma has been awarded a prestigious Rubicon grant. With this fellowship, she will spend two years conducting research at Harvard University, where she will join a leading paleoecology laboratory.

Radhika Gupta has received a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council to study how transnational Islamic charitable networks are entangled with Western humanitarianism and neoliberal welfare frameworks.

A paper during her master's degree put student Luca Andrea on the trail of Roman coins. While on an internship at the Teylers Museum, she organised the coin collection and came across some fascinating stories. 'Coins have had all kinds of functions.'

From 6-8 April 2026 the conference "From the ground up: The politics of burial and memory in the early Islamic world" will take place in Cairo, Egypt. Deadline for sending in your abstract: 21 June 2025.

Global science research serves the needs of the Global North, and is driven by the values and interests of a small number of companies, governments and funding bodies, finds a major new international study published today. As such, the authors find, science, technology and innovation research is not…

The most important group of medieval manuscripts from the Special Collections of the University Libraries of Leiden (UBL), the Codices Vossiani Latini, is now available in open access via the Digital Collections. The 324 Latin manuscripts copied in medieval Europe, along with 48 post-medieval manuscripts,…

From Persia and Arabia to North Africa: as early as the nineteenth century, there were Dutch people who used the camera themselves in various regions of the Middle East.

Salvador Regilme recently joined the Institute for History as a lecturer in International Relations.

The Dutch Development Bank's new SDG loan fund for green energy in the global south may not be as positive as it seems. Anthropology professor Marja Spierenburg raises concerns about its potential impact on local communities.

Digital diagnostic tools should improve the diagnostic process of patients with musculoskeletal complaints, so that they can receive the right treatment more quickly.

On Friday 16 February 2024, Rudolf E. de Jong passed away unexpectedly in Cairo. Since 2012, he was the director of the Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC), which he skillfully managed for 12 years. He was laid to rest in Amsterdam on 27 February. Rudolf was 65.

Building a sustainable, international and interdisciplinary consortium for developing evidence-based communication strategies about Antimicrobial Resistance. That is the objective of a new project between researchers from Leiden University, VU Amsterdam and Stellenbosch University in South Africa, made…

Sometimes fascination can lead to in-depth research. Such is the case with Wahyu Widodo, who came across the Islamic Walikutuban ritual in Java in 2019, on which he subsequently wrote his PhD dissertation. Widodo: ‘Besides community, it also breeds political loyalty’