Some offenders are given short prison sentences. They tend to be people who are generally not faring well before they go to prison; they may have difficulty finding a job for instance. A short spell in prison can make them even more vulnerable. Attention therefore needs to be paid to continual supervision…

On 24 January 2025, a Workshop on ‘Protecting human rights through collective redress’ took place at the Central European University in Vienna. It was organised by Dr Zsolt Körtvélyesi in the framework of a Maria Skłodowska-Curie project on ‘Minority Rights – Towards Effective European Enforcement’.

During the SoLaR Young Researchers Platform, which took place on 14 March 2018 in Maastricht, Clara van Dam presented her ongoing research on the role of Habitat guidance documents in the Dutch legal order.

Digitalisering raakt iedereen, maar speelt nauwelijks een rol in verkiezingsdebatten. In een opiniestuk in de Volkskrant pleit Reijer Passchier, universitair docent staatsrecht en hoogleraar digitalisering aan de OU voor politieke urgentie en visie op digitale vraagstukken.

On Wednesday 5 July 2017 the Child Law Department and the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies of Leiden Law School hosted a festive drinks reception to celebrate 5 years of the Frontiers of Children's Rights Summer School, that has welcomed professionals, researchers and students from all…

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should have ended poverty, inequality and climate change by 2030. In a special campaign, the Dutch universities are showing how they are helping to achieve these goals.

Early diagnosis, new treatments, and personalised care: all of these are possible if we can better unlock the wealth of information hidden in health data. Unfortunately, this data is often poorly organised, difficult to access, and not interoperable. The new international Leiden Institute for FAIR and…

The Dutch polder model has provided stability and administrative calm for many years, but is it still resilient enough to withstand the dynamics of today, or is it ‘too rigid’?

Bringing together institutes and research groups, how do you do that? The Faculty of Science set up a joint research theme and financed three PhD positions. After four years, the profiling programme Endocannabinoids expires. ‘It really brought us together, and the collaborations remain.’

The debate about state behaviour in cyberspace may be set in the wrong legal key.

What does life look like after International Studies? For Chris Colijn who graduated in 2018, it involves working on his master’s in Russian and Eurasian Studies, in combination with a bustling traineeship for “Raam of Rusland”, a think tank, focusing on Russian and Ukrainian politics, economy and culture.…

The scientific world is under increasing pressure from all directions: the money that society invests has to show clear returns. ‘The best thing we can do is to go along with this development,' says Ivo de Nooijer, Director of Luris, Leiden University's valorisation institute.

This doctoral project by artist and educator Luiz Zanotello engenders a postcolonial understanding of time, space and movement by means of artistic research methods. The project examines the contradictory effects of the abyssal line of thought within the tropics as a starting point.

It is not possible for juvenile courts to properly assess whether it is necessary to place a child in care. This is evident from a fact sheet that has been prepared by legal scholars from Leiden University, commissioned by the Dutch House of Representatives and others.

What is 'teaching excellence' in Higher Education? Which different teaching excellence training, promotion and reward schemes exist across Europe? How can a common European teaching scheme look like? The e-NOTE project led by Leiden University seeks to answer these question in cooperation with five…

Policy plans state that children should be placed in secure youth care less often and for shorter periods. But this is problematic in practice.

The widespread idea that politics is mediatised needs to be revised. Although media attention heavily influences some political processes, this is not the case when it comes to lawmaking. Lotte Melenhorst, a political scientist at Leiden University, analysed three heavily covered legislative processes…

How can we as a society prevent suicide? According to Professor of Suicide Prevention Renske Gilissen, a better understanding and targeted action could help save lives.

On September 20 and 21, a conference on the governance of international courts and tribunals took place at Leiden Law School.

Lecture, Tuesday Talks: Science Insights

On 15 July 2019 Hans-Martien ten Napel started a new series on freedom of religion or belief for the London School of Economics research-led interdisciplinary Religion and Global Society Blog.

On Friday 16 April, the webinar 'Children and young adults in contact with the law: Systemic vulnerabilities and institutional responses' will take place. The webinar is organised by Eva Schmidt LL.M, Dr. Anna Pivaty (Radboud University/Maastricht University) and Dr. Stephanie Rap, with the support…

Het college van bestuur heeft Wim Voermans benoemd tot Universiteitshoogleraar. Hij gaat zich richten op duurzaam institutioneel vertrouwen.

Dr. Miguel John Versluys (Archaeology) has been awarded a prestigious Vici grant for his project:

International Archaeology student Grace Alonzo went back to her home country when the coronavirus situation developed. Now she is living at her parents place in the US, following Leiden lectures remotely, while juggling a tight schedule with a job, and the effect of time difference. ‘I have all my exams…

The documentary invites us to consider the question of what we consider valuable knowledge. “We need to realise that doing and thinking are intertwined in ways we did not comprehend before” argues Maikel Kuijpers, archaeologist and the producer of the documentary. “This will have consequences for the…

On 9 March 2023, the Council for the Judiciary organized a conference on innovations within the judiciary, which took place in the building of the Dutch Supreme Court. The central conference theme was judicial innovation and what we can learn from various forms of socially effective justice (‘maatschappelijk…

Issues such as climate change, the depletion of natural resources or social inequality are too complex to be addressed from a single scientific discipline or by a single country. Leiden University has the expertise to bring the resolution of these enormous problems a small step closer.

To construct catalysts that can produce fuels from CO2 innumerable times, we need to learn much more about how catalysis works. Irene Groot is conducting groundbreaking research into catalysis at the atomic level.

What is the role of academia in solving societal problems such as the corona crisis? Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker spoke about this at the opening of the academic year on 31 August.

The logo of Leiden University, with letters as small as a bacterium. Researchers from LUMC and the Institute of Biology have created the smallest logo of our university ever produced. It is a piece of fun with a serious real-world application: the new microscope with which the logo was made allows scientists…

Boundaries in the collaboration between private and public interests are more blurred in the US than Europe, says Reijer Passchier, Professor of Digitalisation and the Democratic Constitutional State at the Open University and Assistant Professor in Constitutional Law in Leiden, in ‘de Volkskrant’.

Electrolysis is a technique that can be used to convert CO2 into fuels and other useful products. To do this efficiently and on a large scale, however, we need to understand exactly how electrolysis works. Professor Marc Koper is an expert in this field.

‘The system is failing’, ‘the goals are only being achieved to a limited extent’, ‘we’re letting children down’. These are some of the newspaper headlines that followed the publication of a report by researchers from Leiden University in September. Commissioned by the Dutch Research and Documentation…

The West has missed several opportunities to prevent the invasion of Ukraine or, at the very least, to better support the Ukraine, claims Frans Osinga, Professor by special appointment War Studies.

The legal protection of parents and children in cases involving placement in care must improve. That is the opinion of Mariëlle Bruning, Professor of Children and the Law.

The European Network on Teaching Excellence invites applications from interested Academic Staff to participate in a five-day intensive training on PhD supervision excellence.

Who authored the best theses in Leiden University's Political Science BSc programmes?

The Dutch X-omics Initiative has received seventeen million euros from NWO as part of the National Roadmap for Large-Scale Infrastructure. Leiden University’s metabolomics research led by Thomas Hankemeier is one of the participators.

On Thursday 11 May 2017, Qiang Yu will defend his doctoral thesis ‘Market Power and Competition Law In the Software Industry’. The defence will start at 15.00 hrs, at the Academy Building of Leiden University, Rapenburg 73. The supervisors of the research are Professor T.R. Ottervanger and Professor…

Many important topics in computer science, such as the correctness of software, the efficiency of algorithms and the modeling of complicated systems, depend on sound theoretical underpinnings. In the Theory group, we study these fundamental building blocks and develop verification methods to prove system…

The European Research Council has awarded a Starting Grant to five early career scientists from Leiden University. They received funding up to 1.5 million euros to further expand on their research subject.

On average, Dutch breeding birds have become more numerous in the period 1980-2010. The common species have even done better than birds in other European countries. Farmland birds are an exception: they declined sharply both in the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe.

The monthly ILS Lunch seminars bring together colleagues and students from Leiden Law School, providing an informal setting to hear what researchers from other research programs and institutes are working on. On Thursday 8 November, a new edition of the ILS Lunch Seminars takes place. This month, Philippe…

In Dutch newspaper NRC, Pieter Omtzigt says he finds it 'unconstitutional' that he has no right to vote in committee meetings. Omtzigt believes he is as much a Member of Parliament as other MPs. However, since 2017, a breakaway group is no longer entitled to a proportional share of staff support and…

On 18 January 2018, the inaugural ILS PhD Workshop took place, featuring two Interaction Between Legal Systems lectures by the invited academics Prof. Gareth Davies and Aristi Volou, as well as presentations by the six ILS PhD researchers.

Persecution, conflicts and crises threaten academic facilities and researchers worldwide. This has major implications for science. Leiden University's Scholars for Scholars programme helps scientists in need through crowdfunding.

A stable home situation is important for the successful return to society of prisoners. So what is their home situation like? And what effect does it have on reoffending? PhD defence on 16 January 2020.