The interdisciplinary, English-taught minor ‘Violence Studies’ looks at violence from very diverse scientific perspectives. What are the benefits from this approach? Students and lecturers evaluate: ‘This minor’s a goldmine’.

NATO not only safeguards our security and stability, but also defends Enlightenment principles, promoting prosperity, health and freedom. This is what eminent psychologist and thinker Steven Pinker argued to a packed Great Auditorium.

Revelations about unacceptable behaviour and sexual misconduct in the TV and sporting world have rekindled the public debate about a safe environment. At Leiden University we are coming together to prevent unacceptable behaviour and provide proper care and support for victims. According to President…

2025 was a year to remember at our faculty. We celebrated our 450th anniversary, launched new degree programmes and welcomed many inspiring speakers, yet we also felt the weight of budget constraints. Our year in a nutshell:

In the course 'From Ceramics to Plastics: The Mediterranean in 12 objects' students were taught to work with 3D scanning technologies. One of the underlying reasons to introduce students to this technology was to teach them to reproduce objects. ‘More and more archaeological information is stored in…

Masses of hamburgers, steaks, cheese and a lot of eggs: Americans love their animal products. But researcher Oliver Taherzadeh discovered that only a relatively small group of high-volume consumers need to modify their diet to achieve an enormous environmental gain.

International collaboration is essential to research and teaching but it also brings risks. Such as sharing sensitive knowledge and technology or foreign interference in research. Rector Hester Bijl explains what staff can do to prevent this.

Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker will retire on 8 February. If there’s one theme running through his career, it’s the links between the University and society. In this series of pre-retirement discussions, Stolker will talk one last time to people from within and without the University. This edition…

Permission was recently given for all members of the examining committee and co-supervisors at PhD ceremonies to wear academic dress, even if they’re not full professors. How historic is this change?

For more than 35 years they helped put American Studies on the map: Joke Kardux and Eduard van de Bilt. This spring, the couple retired. A farewell interview.

From forwarding promising calls and arranging budgets to assisting in legal issues and keeping track of important deadlines: to associate professor Roxanne Kieltyka, the research support offered by project managers Inge Rietveld en Christina Schlüpen is fundamental. ‘The combination of our expertise…

As you know, the faculty is working on a new follow-up strategy with six themes. Each theme now has its own writing team. Every week we speak with one of these teams about their work, and share the highlights. On this page you can find the current article and an overview of all articles on the follow-up…

Computer says no: end of story. Twenty years ago, a hilarious line in the British TV series Little Britain, now a reality. We all blindly follow technology at times, with varying consequences. For ISGA lecturer and researcher Daan Weggemans, it's a subject worthy of a PhD.

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) in partnership with Elsevier hosted a series of online seminars on the challenges involved in achieving reproducibility in research. The seminars aimed to identify best practices that can help to overcome central challenges around reproducibility, and to convey several…

Alumna Nadia Kadhim started in 2017 as a corporate lawyer implementing the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) at one of the companies where she volunteered. By late 2022 she had received both a Most Inspiring Women in Cyber Award and was on the Forbes 30 under 30 list with her legal start-up…

Commercial MRI systems cost millions of euros to purchase and require highly trained technicians to operate. Prof. Andrew Webb works on accessible MRI techniques that offer new opportunities in both developed and developing countries. Webb is a professor at the Radiology Department of the LUMC and,…

The Netherlands is known globally for being a champion of equality. But is it really? On 8 March, International Women's Day, three Leiden experts reflect on this year's national theme: #NietMijnRecht (#NotMyRight)

From experimental essays to comfort reads, and from manga to court literature in verse: Japanese literature has it all.

Can students solve cold cases? In the elective courses ‘Introduction to Cold Cases’ and ‘Cold Cases’, theory is combined with practice and students investigate actual police files. 'Hopefully, we can add a fresh perspective to investigations.'

An e-coaching programme helps people with chronic kidney disease, particularly in areas that patients themselves want to work on. ‘A healthy lifestyle is important for patients with kidney disease: it can slow down the loss of kidney function and there will be fewer complications,’ Katja Cardol explains…

The University Council meeting on 2 June was largely dominated by the demonstration, occupation and policing in The Hague last month.

Three new minors at the intersection of security and resilience will launch in September 2026 at the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs. A distinctive feature is that all three combine academic coursework with a practical placement in the field, within defence, the police, or emergency service…

In July, the unions and universities reached a definitive CAO agreement (Collective Labour Agreement), with commitments on higher pay, more permanent contracts and a more inclusive leave scheme. Colleagues from the HR department and the FNV union explain how the agreement was reached, what we can expect…

Alumnus Jelte Liemburg, aged 29, aims to visit every single one of the 500 museums in the Netherlands that take part in the national museum pass scheme.

PhD defence

Lecture

CADS Research Seminar

Orange the World 2025

Are you looking for a coach? If so, you’re welcome to contact one of the university’s internal or external coaches; you can do this directly yourself, after choosing a coach who seems suitable.

Lecture

PhD defence

Lecture

PhD defence

PhD defence

Lecture | LUCIS Keynote

Lecture, Asia Research Cluster

VR experience | Just Peace Festival

Study support

Network meeting

Exhibition

Lecture, Research Seminar Medieval and Early Modern History

Lecture, Research Seminar

Workshop

Communication

Piercing through the skull with an ice pick, administering electric shocks without an anaesthetic, or applying leeches to the uterus: these may seem like medieval methods of torture, but they are in fact therapies used in medicine. Willem van der Does writes about all of them in his new book. ‘Physicians…

Over a century ago, Alexandra van Elroy's great-grandfather left for Japan, where her grandmother was born. Together with her mother, Maaike van der Loon, she reminisces about her family history, through which a key thread is the study of Japanese and Chinese.

2023 was another year full of highlights and special moments for the faculty of Governance and Global Affairs. Find out what the year was like in this year overview: we take you through the most important moments and news items month of each month.

Natalia Sobrino-Saeb, third-year student at Leiden University College The Hague, won the challenge by the Ignitor Fellowship Program held by the Nobel Peace Center for her essay on the threats to journalism in Mexico. On December 10th Natalia met the Committee of the Ignitor Fellowship in Oslo and attended…

On 28 June, ten dedicated lecturers received their Senior Teaching Qualification (SKO). Rector Hester Bijl congratulated them in an online meeting. We asked some of them what this qualification means to them, what they believe ‘good teaching’ entails and what makes them so passionate about education…