In 2018, Megan Griffiths, then a student of the MA North American Studies, won the Theodore Roosevelt American History Award for her master’s thesis ‘Radicals, Conservatives, and the Salem Witchcraft Crisis: Exploiting the Fragile Communities of Colonial New England’.

Since March 5th, the road between Holland Spoor Station and the old city centre of The Hague (also called the “Loper Oude Centrum”) features 33 sayings in various languages that are spoken in The Hague – many of which are taught here at LUCL.

Prisoners who have little or no contact with the outside world are more prone to reoffend. What makes visits so important?

Maartje van der Woude, Professor of Law and Society, was a guest on NPO Radio 1 programme 'Spraakmakers' to talk about more border fences on the EU’s external borders and the usefulness of such measures. She was also a guest on 'Vroeg!' to discuss a court case about ethnic profiling.

Time and again synthesised substances have been shown to pollute the environment more than lab tests predicted. In her inaugural lecture on 16 November, professor of Ecotoxicology Martina Vijver gives a warning for the risks of new, man-made chemical substances and nanomaterials. Various media payed…

Michiel Claessen, Ineke van der Ham, Nicolien de Rooij and Anne Visser have published a paper in the Nederlands Tijdschrift voor revalidatiegeneeskunde, (Dutch Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine) entitled ‘De weg kwijt na een beroerte: screening, diagnostiek en behandeling’.

At the annual conference of the Nederlandse Vereniging voor Wetgeving (the Dutch association for legislation) that was held in the Auditorium of the Ministries of Internal Affairs and Kingdom Relations and Justice and Security in The Hague on Thursday 6 October, Gert Jan Geertjens defended the draft…

Three years ago, Associate Professor Alicia Schrikker published 'De vlinders van Boven-Digoel', in which she chronicled several stories about colonial life in present-day Indonesia. Now there is a translation, by Rianti Manullang, who is also an assistant professor at Universitas Indonesia and doing…

The role of mayors is changing from one where they are typically ‘security bosses’ within their own municipalities, to ‘super networkers’ who are increasingly engaged at regional and national levels. This is the opinion of Ruth Prins, programme director of the bachelor’s progamme in Security Studies…

PhD defence

Greek papyrology is the science that is concerned with deciphering and studying all texts written in Greek on papyrus. Papyrus was the writing material of antiquity and was made from strips of the papyrus plant stuck together.

Research in the arts at the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA)  

The major aim is to develop, evaluate, and implement disease-generic cognitive-behavioral interventions through the internet in order to optimize tailored health care for patients with chronic somatic conditions.

The modification of risk factors and related health behaviors lies at the very core of adequate cardiovascular risk management, yet evidence shows that the majority of people with cardiovascular disease (CVD) fail to achieve a healthy lifestyle in the long term. The main objective of this project is…

When it comes to languages and cultures, Leiden University is the university. The global expertise present places our university at the top. In Leiden and The Hague, we study languages and cultures from all regions of the world and from prehistory to the present day. In this way we create a broad view…

The ISSC's ICT helpdesk receives dozens of questions from staff and students every day. A collaboration between TNO, LUCL and the ISSC aims to determine whether a specially designed chatbot could provide support in this area.

On the eve of World War II, Leiden was home to the largest Indonesian student community in the Netherlands. Many of these students joined the resistance against the German occupation, and later some fought for Indonesia’s independence.

PhD defence

Valedictory lecture

Bookpresentation

The digital age offers unprecedented opportunities: information is always accessible, systems are interconnected, and processes are automated. However, these developments also give rise to new threats. During the Night of Digital Security on 26 May at the Wijnhaven building, more than experts shared…

Urgent sociatal challenges such as global warming, international security and migration can not be solved by national parliaments. The House of Representatives loses control over problems that are being tackled at European level. The recommendations of the state commission are inadequate.

As part of its plans to introduce a stricter asylum policy, the Dutch cabinet wants to expand checks at internal borders within the EU. Professor of Law and Society Maartje van der Woude tells Dutch daily newspaper NRC that this is a symbolic measure: ‘Border checks will not counter the right to seek…

In the period 1977–2020, the purchasing power of the Dutch population increased by 58 percent. The sharpest rise occurred from 1999–2009 (22 percent). This is the outcome of research conducted by Leiden University and Statistics Netherlands (CBS).

During this award ceremony for alumni op Saturday, 10 February 2018, Vincent Bakker was awarded second prize in Leiden University’s 2018 Thesis Award. These prizes are made possible by the Minerva Reünisten Fund Year 1957/1961/1965, incorporated into the Leiden University Fund (LUF). His thesis supervisors…

Nicolette Heijkant is our guest on the latest episode of Leiden Lawcast. Heijkant is an experienced lawyer who won her spurs working in the legal profession in Amsterdam’s business district, the Zuidas, and is now working for a legal-aid practice in Brabant. In this episode, we speak to her about her…

In the podcast EU Scream, a non-for-profit organization based in Brussels, Martijn Nouwen tells about his research into communications about European tax rulings.

The explanation from physicist Scott Waitukaitis for the screaming and bouncing gel balls in a hot pan has been covered in several media, including the Washington Post.

The first fine for space debris has been issued. An American company that had failed to clean up its space junk has been fined $150.000.

Cat Paw Tweet Goes Viral

Researchers have discovered oxygen in the furthest known galaxy JADES-GS-z14-0. Leiden astronomers Sander Schouws and Rychard Bouwens were part of the team that made this discovery. This news was reported in all newspapers and online media.

From Mexico and Indonesia to China and Italy: people from all over the world read about the Leiden Observatory publication on the birthplace of comets. This research suggests that all comets in our solar system might come from the same place: a specific range in the flat disk of dust and gas that once…

'Een nieuw commentaar op de Grondwet' is the title of a book published this week. The book uses 35 essays to describe the importance of the Constitution to the Dutch democratic rule of law.

Universiteiten moeten niet verbaasd zijn dat studenten ChatGPT gebruiken, schrijven de Leidse universitair docenten Femke Klaver en Alexander de Wit in Trouw. Want studenten reageren op efficiëntie en doelmatigheid. Hun suggestie: Leid studenten op om kritisch na te denken.

In order to attract and retain new talent, employers in the Zuidas business district of Amsterdam are increasing their support offered to parents and expectant parents. This includes funding sleep coaches, babysitters and fertility programmes for their staff. Professor of Economics Olaf van Vliet explains…

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.

In its ruling this week, The Hague Court of Appeal made short work of how the Dutch Border Police allow the colour of a person’s skin to be taken into account when selecting people to check. According to Maartje van der Woude, this ruling reaches far beyond the border police. ‘This is a problem for…

In an op-ed and an interview in Dutch newspaper ‘de Volkskrant’, Reijer Passchier, Assistant Professor in Constitutional Law at Leiden University and Professor of Digitalisation and the Democratic Constitutional State at the Open University, stresses that Europe needs to take radical steps to tackle…

On 27 November 2019, David de Boer defended his PhD dissertation 'Religious Persecution and Transnational Compassion in the Dutch Vernacular Press 1655-1745'. For his research, he analysed several hundred pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals published primarily in the seventeenth-century Netherlands,…

It was not light, but its absence that caught Stephanie Noach's attention a few years ago. With her research on darkness in art, she aims to show how darkness can question and sometimes even undermine colonial imagery.

PhD defence

Inaugural lecture

Inaugural lecture

PhD defence

Lecture, Peace Histories Seminar Series

Our solar system probably evolved in the same way as most of the other planetary systems around us. This has been shown by German-Austrian-Dutch research on more than 870 planet-forming disks in the Orion cloud A. The five researchers, including three from the Leiden Observatory, published their findings…

An international team of researchers led by Alice Booth (Leiden University, the Netherlands) have discovered methanol in the warm part of a planet-forming disk. The methanol cannot have been produced there and must have originated in the cold gas clouds from which the star and the disk formed. Thus,…