The 289 students who recently moved into the tower on Kolffpad at the Leiden Bio Science Park are sitting pretty. A self-contained unit in the middle of the campus yet surrounded by green, with a launderette, games room and study area on the ground floor, and, coming soon, a branch of Coffee Star.

On 25 February 2021, the UN High Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity for Achieving the 2030 Agenda (FACTI panel) has adopted its final report, to which Valentina Carraro (GTGC) and Hortense Jongen (VU Amsterdam) have contributed by writing a background paper…

Stefaan Van den Bogaert, Professor of European Law and Academic Director of the Institute of Public Law, is to join the Faculty Board of Leiden Law School as Director of Research and Vice Dean.

Three international research projects involving Leiden University researchers will receive funding from the Una Europa university alliance.

The history of the LGTBI+ collective, deeply marked by episodes of violence, repression, and discrimination, is also the history of the struggle for social change and the conquest of civil rights, advances without which contemporary Western democracies could not be explained. More recently, the implementation…

The production of history is a process of power. This is particularly relevant in Africa, where during both the colonial and the post-colonial era history has been written by hegemonic regimes. This historiography has in turn (re-)produced structures of domination, social exclusion and division.…

On 24 April, Selma Ablak was awarded the distinction of Member of the Order of Oranje-Nassau by the mayor of Amsterdam during the digital honours presentations. Ablak works at the Governance and Global Affairs Faculty Office in The Hague. She was presented with the award partly because of her commitment…

Three of our researchers have been awarded a certificate for receiving enough downloads to be in the top 10% of papers in 2022

The Executive Board has appointed Pieter ter Keurs as professor of Museums, Collections, and Society as of 1 September 2019. The chair will be part of LUCAS (Faculty of Humanities) and is a collaborative effort of the Faculty of Archaeology and the Faculty of Humanities. Ter Keurs has his roots in…

University lecturer in Chinese and Comparative Philosophy Jingjing Li has been awarded a Veni grant for her research on feminist theories within the Buddhist philosophy of consciousness-only. Jingjing Li explains her plans and the importance of her research.

It is with great sadness that we learned that our colleague Leo Waaijers, guest employee at our institute, passed away on August 1 after a short illness.

An external visitation committee gave the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) an outstanding assessment. In terms of research quality and relevance to society, the IBL gets the highest score: excellent. The increase with five new female professors also receives praise from the committee.

The Dutch Passport Alerts Register (Register paspoortsignaleringen, RPS) lists Dutch nationals (around 8000 in 2021) whose right to a passport has been restricted. As a result, they cannot apply for, renew, or must surrender their passports. Under the Passport Act, the Tax Authority, the DUO (Education…

Starting September 1st, philosopher Douglas Berger will be professor of Comparative Philosophy at the Leiden Institute for Philosophy. His appointment marks a new direction for research and education in philosophy at Leiden University.

Money worries can vary from person to person and be about different things: for instance, energy bills, healthcare costs or household spending. The new National Money Worries Monitor wants to gain more insight into the money worries and financial vulnerability of the Dutch population.

The Executive Board has appointed Ineke Sluiter and Arnold Tukker as distinguished professors at Leiden University.

How does it feel to be spied on by robots? Did you know that they too discriminate? Our entanglement with technology makes life easier, but there’s a downside too. Artists and researchers will show all aspects of this in the SAILS online talk show The Future of AI is Human. Join in on Tuesday 15 December…

From social inequalities in prehistory to placebo effects in medical treatments. Four researchers from Leiden University have been awarded a prestigious ERC Advanced Grant worth EUR 2.5 million to develop their research.

During a meeting at the University on 10 November, staff spontaneously removed a painting by artist Rein Dool from the wall in one of the meeting rooms in the Academy Building, reversed it and placed it on the floor. A tongue-in-cheek action with a serious undertone. This has led to a lot of commotion…

Histories, Philosophies, and Communities

The Leiden University psychologist Carolien Rieffe will investigate how to create an social climate at high schools, to make young people with autism feel more comfortable and able to engage with their social surroundings and thus develop essential social and emotional skills. Rieffe and collaborators…

What do gender identity and digital technology have to do with each other? Together they are the subject of research at Leiden University. Researchers Tessa Verhoef and Eduard Fosch-Villaronga of the faculties of Mathematics and Natural Sciences and Law will investigate the interaction between artificial…

On November 22 in Arusha, Tanzania, the Council of Ministers of the East African Community (EASC) endorsed the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as its seventh Partner State. This meeting, chaired by Kenya’s EAC Affairs and Regional Development Cabinet Secretary Adan Mohamed, represents one of the…

The new open access book The Science of Citizen Science bundles insights into science that is conducted together with citizens, to promote this growing form of science.

Neele Boelens is a board member at DWARS, the youth organisation of political party GroenLinks. In addition, she is studying towards two degrees at Leiden University: Linguistics and Public Administration. A busy year, especially with the upcoming elections.

The Roosevelt Chair in New Diplomatic History is sponsored by the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies (RIAS) in Middelburg, and the new position further strengthens the connection between the RIAS and Leiden.

Leiden University is in third place in the Netherlands for the percentage of women professors, behind the Open University and Radboud University in Nijmegen. This is reported in the Review of Women Professors 2018.

A new app provides dynamic predictions of survival for patients suffering from soft tissue sarcoma. It was developed by the mathematical Institute research group DASPO, Data Analysis and Survival for Personalised Oncology.

On 1 November 2018, Marieke Bloembergen was appointed Professor of Archival and Postcolonial Studies at the Institute for History.

How did people move and form communities when human societies first shifted from hunting and gathering to farming? A new study of the Neolithic period in southwest Asia, the birthplace of agriculture, offers fresh insights.

David van Bodegom, Professor of Vitality in an Ageing Population, will give his inaugural lecture on 11 November, also titled Vitality in an Ageing Population. According to Van Bodegom the key to healthy ageing is the lived environment. In the fight against lifestyle-related conditions, he therefore…

At the opening of the LDE-BRIN Academy on 31 October, the Bosscha Medal was awarded to Professor Taniawati Supali from the Department of Parasitology at the University of Indonesia. She receives the medal for her outstanding contribution to science and her working style, which is characterised by collaboration,…

From 16 to 18 August, 30 participants from 18 different countries gathered online to participate in the Online Summer Programme: Preventing, Detecting and Responding to Violent Extremism, organised by Leiden University’s Centre for Professional Learning (CPL) together with the International Centre for…

Do you have a creative idea for improving contacts between Dutch and international students? Work out a plan and you could win the Van Bergen Prize and earn 5,000 euros to put your idea into practice. Deadline 22 October.

Microorganisms that temporarily ‘go to sleep’ play an important role in the evolution and survival of a population. Mathematician Shubhamoy Nandan conducted research on the effect of this characteristic called ‘dormancy’ in a novel mathematical model.

Citizens still see great value in science communication and want to be increasingly involved in science. This is evident from research by the National Expertise Centre for Science & Society (NEWS) and researchers from the Science Communication and Society department at Leiden University.

At this year's conclusion of the PRE-Class Psychology, the central hall of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences became a hub of knowledge exchange revolving around a central theme: emotions.

An EU-project full of suggestions for cultural associations...

International Women's Day (8 March) saw the announcement of the first Leiden Top 50: fifty Leiden women who have made a difference over the past year through their activities. Many of the women in the list are affiliated with our University.

Early July was the graduation ceremony of the Leiden Leadership Programme,: a moment to reflect and celebrate the outcomes of eight months’ hard work. Leiden’s Marekerk was filled with colourful music and some wise pieces of advice: ‘Find the path that suits you best.’

Liesbet van Zoonen is Director of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for BOLD Cities. The Centre was founded in 2016 and has made a name for itself with such innovations as data walks and the ‘Your Neighbourhood – Your Data’ game and conducts research together with the Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and…

With an ERC grant, anthropologist Jasmijn Rana will explore how outdoor groups address the lack of diversity and how ethno-racial inequalities are experienced and resisted in Europe's outdoor spaces.

A splendid milestone after seven years of collaborative research on the sustainable development of the Indonesian economy. Professor of Industrial Ecology Arnold Tukker has been appointed as a guest professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business of Universitas Padjadjaran (UNPAD) in the Indonesian…

The percentage of female professors at Leiden University has risen to 31.2 per cent. These are the results of the Women Professors Monitor 2021 published by the Dutch Network of Women Professors (LNVH). This puts Leiden University above the national average of 26.7 per cent.

Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker was presented with a 'Diamond' on 8 June in recognition of Leiden University's role as a 'shining example' of male/female diversity. 'It's a question of determination,' says Stolker, 'and that gets results. For example, we are appointing an increasing number of female…

We are pleased to invite abstracts for a conference on ‘Advancing Social, Economic, and Cultural Rights in a Polarised, Digitalised, and Unequal World’ to be held at Leiden University on 4 and 5 September 2025, in collaboration with Netherlands Network for Human Rights Researh (NNHRR).

‘Make use of us!’ This is what the collaborating universities of Rotterdam, Delft and Leiden have to say to administrators and policymakers. And the call has not fallen on deaf ears, says Marja van Bijsterveldt, the Mayor of Delft. ‘Now more than ever we can use knowledge to solve societal issues in…

Eduard Fosch-Villaronga from eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies, and Hadassah Drukarch, explored the role of intersectionality within (rehabilitation) robot design, testbed, and standards. Being oblivious to these considerations may give way to the development of robots that fall short of…

Fear and hatred of Muslims are rising rapidly to the surface in the United Kingdom, Assistant Professor Tahir Abbas writes in his new book. British politicians and journalists play an insidious role in this, he says.

Since April 2023 the current war in Sudan has brought larger death, destruction, and displacement than any other ongoing armed conflict on earth. This dialogue brought together wise thinkers and excellent speakers from academia, civil society, policymakers, and youth to discuss how peace can be brought…