It was great to welcome so many people at the LACDR Spring symposium on the 4th of April 2023. The meeting started with an inspiring lecture of Dr. Mustafa Diken (Bioentech) on the evolution of mRNA vaccines. Afterwards, PhD speakers from LACDR, LIC and CHDR gave presentations on a wide range of pharma-related…

Recently, Johan Christensen, Assistant Professor at the FGGA, contributed to the commentary series on technocracy and democracy in global governance that is organised by the Global Governance Centre and the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy.

On Friday 2 June 2023, Vincent Delhomme, Assistant professor at the Europe Institute at Leiden Law School, successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled : ‘Regulating lifestyle risks in EU law: Promoting health in a diverse market’.

President Zelensky of Ukraine has asked the UN International Court of Justice to issue an urgent order to stop Russian military activity in his country. According to Zelensky, Russia has twisted the concept of genocide to justify aggression.

Professor Petra Sijpesteijn has been elected as an International Fellow of the British Academy, a prestigious recognition that highlights her exceptional contributions to the study of early Islamic history.

The British Academy appointed Eveline Crone as a Corresponding Fellow to recognise her contribution to the SHAPE themes - the social sciences, humanities and the arts. The British Academy is the national academy for social sciences and humanities in the United Kingdom. Besides Crone, 83 other Fellows…

On Monday 9 May, IIASL alumnus Adrian Young gave a very satisfying cross-disciplinary session between law and the arts, on the preservation of heritage in space.

Under the title “New insights from old collections”, the archaeological research was introduced on the Museum’s news page.

Nineteen students who obtained excellent results in the minor Intelligence Studies received the annual Kluitersprijs.

On 25 May, Professor Paul Abels retired as professor by special appointment. Abels has been working as Professor by special appointment Governance of Intelligence and Security Services at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs since 2017.

Researchers from the Coherent Private Law research program have published an article in The Law Teacher about the state of the art of Empirical Legal Studies education in the Netherlands.

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…

The Executive Board is delighted to announce that Joanne van der Leun took up the position of the university’s Academic Lead International Affairs as of 1 January 2025.

Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands will attend the Dies Natalis ceremony at Leiden's Pieterskerk on Friday 7 February to celebrate our 450th anniversary.

Education

Carlotta Rigotti, post-doc researcher at eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies, and Alexandre Puttick (Bern University of Applied Science) presented some research outputs of the Horizon Europe BIAS project during the European Workshop on Algorithmic Fairness '23.

How many children are waiting for help from youth services in the Netherlands at any given time? And exactly how long do they have to wait?

Last week, Kaya Peerdeman received the SIPS Early Career Award at the fourth international conference of the Society for Interdisciplinary Placebo Studies in Duisburg, Germany.

Education, Research

Satellites belonging to American space company SpaceX recently came very close to a Chinese space station. Experts are calling for traffic management rules in space.

Education

Rogier Creemers, assistent professor in Modern Chinese Studies, wrote an article about China's social credit system in the Schweizer Monat. In the article he argues that it is not the most dangerous among China's technology projects.

Since reintegration officer Bart Reedijk started work in Dordrecht three years ago, ex-convicts in that municipality have reoffended a lot less often. There is much interest in Reedijk's method throughout the Netherlands, but experts have reservations.

Facility

On 26 September 2023, Carlotta Rigotti was invited to give a talk on the regulatory impact of the AI Act on AI applications for recruitment and selection, during the AI Lund Fika-to-Fika Workshop on Regulating High Risk AI in the EU.

It was great to welcome so many colleagues at the LACDR Spring Symposium! After an inspiring lecture by Dr. Avinash Patel from Dewpoint Therapeutics, nine PhD speakers from LACDR, LIC, CHDR and LUMC-KFT gave presentations on a wide range of pharma-related topics. These speakers competed for first place.…

Since 1 January Leiden has a new graduate school. The Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis (NICA), previously based at the University of Amsterdam, has moved to the Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS).

With a well-attended award ceremony at the entrance of the Johan Huizinga Building on Tuesday 20 December, we concluded the World Cup prediction competition of the Institute for History in which 57 colleagues of 17 different nationalities competed for glory.

Facility

Research

In a recent article published on PLOS, Drs. Briana Pobiner and Ryan McRae of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History discuss the top 13 discoveries in human evolution in 2023.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has accused Finland of violating the rights of Finnish children by leaving them in life-threatening conditions in Syrian camps. Ann Skelton, member of the committee, calls the situation 'inhuman'.

Tahir Abbas, associate professor at ISGA, has been appointed as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. The Academy of Social Sciences is the UK’s national academy of academics, learned societies and practitioners in the social sciences. Its purpose is to promote social science in the United Kingdom…

The Health Council of the Netherlands has published an advisory report entitled ‘Ethische en juridische overwegingen Covid-19’ (Covid-19: ethical and legal considerations). According to the Council, businesses and organisations may request a vaccination certificate, but can only do so under strict c…

This March, Jara Bouma, Cas van der Horst and Laura Heitman from the Division of Drug Discovery and Safety and Laura de Paus, Richard van den Berg, Anthe Janssen and Mario van der Stelt from the LIC joined forces to determine how some drugs can specifically target the cannabinoid CB2 receptor (CB2R)…

For the second year in a row, we had to hold the spring symposium as an online event. But nevertheless, there were impressive presentations and interesting poster pitches.

The UK has recently been facing racist violence outbreaks. Tahir Abbas, Professor of Radicalisation Studies, discusses this in an article on Hyphen.

Psychologist Ellen de Bruijn is investigating what hormonal fluctuations do to women's behaviour and well-being. The National science funding body NWO honoured her research with a Vici grant; earlier this year she received an ERC Consolidator Grant. Read the interview with De Bruijn about her resear…

Climate change is going to have more and more influence on our daily lives in the near future. For example, tackling it is going to have significant consequences for many people in our society.

The MSc Life Science & Technology receives a bronze medal in EW Best Studies 2023. Every year, Elsevier selects the top programmes in higher education. A medal means that students are above-average satisfied with the quality of their programme.

Marc Koper, Professor of Catalysis and surface chemistry, has been awarded the EuChemS Gold Medal 2026. The prize is awarded every two years and recognises outstanding achievements in the field of chemistry in Europe.

PhD, Staff

If you want to travel for work to an area with a security risk country or area with the color code orange and/or red, you need prior permission from the university.

From street harassment to coercive control: gender-based violence has many faces. University Lecturer Mischa Dekker has studied street harassment in the Netherlands and France, and supports institutions and organisations in embedding structural change.

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…