On 17 November 2017 the Board of the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA) in The Hague welcomed the Mayor of Leiden, Henri Lenferink, and Alderman Paul Dirkse for a working visit, and introduced them to the campus in The Hague. During the visit, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed…

How do you experience a quieter city? Or a silenced city? Our cities are normally filled with noise. The corona crisis has changed that. Few or no people on the streets, shops closed, much less traffic, hardly any planes coming over. The soundscape of the city has completely changed. Soundtrackcity,…

Urban green infrastructure has the ability to make make cities more sustainable. However, the exact implementation of green infrastructure and the choices that must be made during implementation, are still topic for discussion. In the Future Cities podcast, environmental scientist Joeri Morpurgo chats…

Leiden University and China import partner.

Your local city park may be improving your health, according to a new paper led by Leiden environmental scientist Roy Remme. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Remme and his colleagues describe how access to nature increases people’s physical activity—and therefore overall health—in…

Why do we give students fictional assignments when there is a multitude of real-world problems just waiting to be solved? Leiden University, Leiden University of Applied Sciences and the Municipality of Leiden are joining forces with partners from the public sector in the Learning with the City project,…

How many cities were there actually in the Roman Empire? And why did some regions only have a few cities, while others consisted of a tight urban network? Luuk de Ligt, Professor of Ancient History, wants to know the answer to all these questions. With the ERC Advanced Grant of 2.5 million awarded to…

Guy Livingston’s five-episode sound-art podcast UNDER/CITY/SOUND brings together people with different backgrounds from all over The Hague to share their listening experiences under quarantine.

How many cities were there actually in the Roman Empire? And why did some regions only have a few cities, while others consisted of a tight urban network? Luuk de Ligt, Professor of Ancient History, wants to know the answer to all these questions. With the ERC Advanced Grant of 2.5 million awarded to…

Many students, staff and alumni of Leiden University are politically active. In the run-up to the local elections on 21 March, candidates in The Hague and Leiden explain why you should vote for them, and what they want to do if they are elected. In this article, it is the turn of the candidates in The…

What makes Leiden the best student city in the Netherlands? This was the question students were invited to answer in films about their city. The winner will be announced on 29 June in the Schouwburg in Leiden.

In a new Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities white paper, researchers and practitioners start the conversation that society desperately needs to have. ‘We’ve outsourced the visionary thinking to tech companies.’

Leiden will be scientific capital of Europe in 2022. The theme of the festivities was announce on 28 October: Who Knows. After all, does anyone have a monopoloy on wisdom these days? Who decides what is true? And does anyone actually know what the future holds?

For a new forum of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, we are inviting you to submit a proposal for a forum essay on city diplomacy (deadline: 15 August 2021).

The VICI research project Citizenship Discourses in the Early Middle Ages, led by Els Rose (Universiteit Utrecht), published a new book: Els Rose, Robert Flierman en Merel de Bruin-van de Beek, red., City, Citizen, Citizenship, 400–1500. A Comparative Approach (Londen: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2024). It…

Saskia Bruines, alderman for Education, Knowledge Economy and International Affairs in The Hague, and Erwin Muller, Chair of Campus The Hague, opened an exhibition about 20 years of Campus The Hague on 4 September. The exhibition in the Atrium of City Hall in The Hague focuses on the links between the…

On January 25, the University of Antwerp organizes a workshop around the theme of "The Fragmented City in Premodern Europe". The workshop is free to attend but registration is necessary.

The disparities in terms of health and wellbeing in The Hague are considerable. A team headed by Jet Bussemaker, professor in the field of policy and society, wants to change that. The 'fences' in the healthcare system have to be got rid of. In particular the Laakkwartier and Moerwijs, two poorer areas…

Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the city of Batavia was supplied with produce by its hinterland, known as the Ommelanden. Bondan Kanumoyoso studied the history of the various ethnic groups that populated this area and in doing so has shed light on the structure of modern-day Indonesian society.…

The book 'Darwin comes to town’ by Menno Schilthuizen has been awarded the best nature book in the Netherlands. The Leiden biologist received the Jan Wolkers Prize, awarded annually by Dutch TV and radio show 'Vroege Vogels'. In his book Schilthuizen describes evolution in one of the newest and most…

The university has been shaping the city of Leiden for 450 years. A brief history of the university buildings that have helped define the city.

This year will see the start of not one but two citizen science projects in Leiden and The Hague. This is the outcome of a large survey among residents and researchers in both university cities. The Citizen Science Lab will help the winners implement their ideas, with support from the University and…

In an (Dutch) interview with the regional Leiden newspaper “Leidsch Dagblad”, Ruben Huele and Ester van der Voet talk about the recently started project PUMA (Prospecting the Urban Mines of Amsterdam).

The Hague Diplomacy Blog is the new monthly blog of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy (HJD), the ISGA-based research journal for the study of diplomacy.

On 16 February, LUC held its first-ever alumni reunion in Oxford. The ‘City of Dreaming Spires’ not just houses the world’s oldest English-speaking university and the real-life locations for the Harry Potter films – it is also home to an ever-growing number of LUC alumni.

Leiden University turned 444 this year, and we are celebrating this milestone with the residents of the two cities in which we have a presence: Leiden and The Hague. Mayor Pauline Krikke explains what 20 years of Campus The Hague means to her city.

City dwellers in the Middle Ages were probably no worse off than people living in villages. Both groups had very different health risks, is Rachel Schats' conclusion from her research on bone material. PhD defence 3 November.

Leiden University is a fantastic example of a network university: we create an impact with the city, stakeholders and regional and international partners. The lines of communication are really short and there is a great sense of togetherness. Our good relations with the city have also informed how we…

Sanneke Kuipers and Dyonne Niehof wrote a blog about 'The Resilient City'. They describe the resilience of a city such as New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and also provide insights of social capital and the resilience of The Hague.

The Hague is going to have a new Campus Boulevard, enabling Leiden University to strengthen its position in the city. This decision was taken by the Municipal Executive of The Hague on 13 December.

On Wednesday 11 October 2017 the African Studies Centre Leiden and the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society are organizing a workshop.

We are pleased to announce a call for papers for the upcoming workshop on the study of smart, sustainable, healthy, and diverse cities in modern-day Indonesia. The workshop aims to explore the future possibilities and challenges of metropolitan centers such as Jakarta, the newly built IKN Nusantara,…

Danielle Chevalier recently published a blog in UGoveRN entitled 'A just city through procedural justice'.

‘The Hague is rapidly developing to become a knowledge city and Leiden University is making an important contribution to this development.' These were the words with which alderman Joris Wijsmuller opened The Hague Day of Architecture on Saturday 20 May 2017. Wijnhaven was the focal point of the day…

A two-day workshop will be organized in Tilburg in December 2023, which has the goal to bring together scholars working on urban history, legal history and economic history of the later medieval and early modern period. The workshop focuses on the sovereignty of cities of trade. Deadline for abstracts:…

This week, around 1,200 brand new students from 68 different countries are getting to know each other and their new student city. Orientation Week Leiden (OWL) got off to a good start on sunny Lammermarkt, which was packed with enthusiastic internationals.

Leiden University contributed to colonialism and slavery through its research and teaching. And governors and residents of Leiden had an active role in colonial networks. These are the findings of two explorative studies presented on 3 April.

Lena, a student of the Crisis and Security Management master at Leiden University, discovered the possibility of attending a Summer School through her study programme. She chose to attend one in Jena, Germany, at Friedrich Schiller University.

The Sustainable City Lab The Hague will be a hub that connects organisations in The Hague that work on sustainability with the research and teaching at Leiden University. ‘We’re going to set to work on complex sustainability challenges in our own backyard,’ says project leader Eefje Cuppen.

On November 27-28 2025, the congress 'Disability and inclusion in the medieval city: a comparative view between Europe and the Islamic World' will be held at the university of Cantabaria, Spain. The deadline for submissions is 13 October, 2025

From 3 to 5 September 2025, the project Governing and Building the City will organize the conference 'Good Governance and the Built Environment of Late Medieval Cities (ca. 1200–1600)' at KBR in Brussels. The deadline for the call for papers is 7 April.

Workshop, 21-22 June On 21-22 June, Dr. C.V. Weeda (Leiden University) and Marie-Louise Leonard (University Ca’ Foscari Venezia) organize a workshop on Worker's health and material environment in Port Cities. The workshop focuses on interdisciplinary discussion. ReMA-students are given the opportunity…

As part of the GTGC Lunch Seminars (Spring 2023), Elena Burgos Martinez, Jyothi Thrivikraman and Daniela Vicherat Mattar presented their work on Food Solidarity as part of a GTGC seed grant project.

Dr. Moritz Jesse, Associate Professor at the Europa Institute, presented his paper ‘Building Bridges or Erecting Walls? – The Application of Equal Treatment and Non-Discrimination in Europe ‘ at the annual meeting of the Law and Society Association.

Governments are increasingly facilitating the roll-out of so-called “smart meters”, a technology for measuring energy consumption that are able to transmit and receive data using a form of electronic communication. However, implementation has been slow or even stalled.

450 years

Prof. em. Wim Blockmans (Leiden University) has given an interview to ‘De Nieuwe Wereld’ (in Dutch). He talks about his latest book 'Medezeggenschap. Politieke participatie in Europa vóór 1800'. Take also a look at the YouTube channel of this Dutch philosophy collective as other videos feature medievalists…

How to contribute to a quantum leap of eco-industrial symbiosis in China?