Compared to other countries, Dutch prisons have relatively few inmates. But who are behind bars in our prisons? Professor of Criminology and Comparative Penology Miranda Boone: ‘It's not the bad, but often the sad and the mad.’

On Wednesday 18 May, the students of the LL.M. Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights presented their work to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child with the aim to provide recommendations on how to make its decision more accessible to children.

The Office for International Education held its second annual Career Café on the evening of 6 February.

The editorial board of the Journal of the LUCAS Graduate Conference is very proud to publish its sixth issue: “Landscape in Perspective: Representing, Constructing, and Questioning Identities”.

Japanese newspapers, photo archives from the Dutch East Indies or information on gender and sexuality: all these can be found in the University Library's 621 humanities databases. A flyer campaign to raise awareness of them begins this week.

The launch of the 'Toolkit for the Design and Effective Implementation of Domestic and International General Anti-avoidance Rules' generates strong interest among tax administrations.

Dr. Andrew Littlejohn has been awarded a Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowship by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. The fellowship provides funds for early-career scholars to write and publish significant monographs that will impact the development of anthropology.

Mayke Kaag has been appointed Professor of the Anthropology of Politics and Governance in Africa at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (CADS) on behalf of the African Studies Centre Leiden (ASCL).

The latest episode of the ‘Betrouwbare Bronnen’ political podcast is devoted to the Leiden Bio Science Park (LBSP). One of the speakers is Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl, who talks about the importance and future of this internationally renowned Leiden knowledge centre.

Predicting cancer survival with machine learning, that is the aim of a new collaboration between the Mathematical Institute, the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) in Brussels and Leiden University Medical Center. The focus of this project is to characterise the model…

‘Criminal law is still an inequality machine’, argues Folkert Jensma in his fortnightly column for Dutch newspaper NRC. After attending the conference ‘Ongelijkheid en de Strafrechtpleging’ ('Inequality and the criminal justice system'), he concludes that ‘nothing has changed’ since his time as a st…

On 1 September, the conference of the Kirchheiner Chair ‘Government and citizens: A matter of trust’ took place. In a packed hall in the beautiful Old Observatory of Leiden University, under the inspiring leadership of Willemien den Ouden, a debate was held on the role of the Dutch National Ombudsman,…

‘Over leven in Aarlanderveen’ , the film that Master's student Marleen Oostenrijk made for her graduation project of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, will be screened 22-28 February at the local television station Studio Alphen. The film portrays the liveability of the village Aarlanderveen…

We are excited to announce the winners of this year's The Hague Journal of Diplomacy Article Award: William Stewart and Jason Dittmer's article on "More-than-Human Space Diplomacy: Assembling Internationalism in Orbit", published in 2023.

On Wednesday 16 June 2021, Karim Khan was sworn in at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague. Experts say this is no easy time to join the ICC.

Research from Dutch news organisation NOS shows that gambling companies, including Holland Casino and the Dutch Lottery, have more influence on the creation of new rules on gambling adverts than addiction experts.

Leiden psychologist Carsten de Dreu was presented with the Spinoza Prize by Education Minister Van Engelshoven on 12 September. The award of 2.5 million euros will allow him to continue with his pioneering research on group dynamics.

Last week Esther Kentin participated in the Second Meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-Ended Expert Group on Marine Litter and Microplastics organized by UN Environment in Geneva.

Ambassador Hyoung Chan Choe of South Korea paid his first visit to Leiden University Nov. 22, where he was received by President Annetje Ottow and Professor of Korea Studies Remco Breuker.

PhD student Camil Staps is continuing his academic career in Berlin. He receives a Rubicon grant to do research there on demonstrative pronouns.

The New Scholar, an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal at the Faculty of Humanities of Leiden University, is launching its first issue, and how? With a double issue!

Amazing discoveries by Jean Jacques Hublin of Early modern Humans in Morocco.

On 23 February, Daniel Somart and Karolina Wróbel, students of the BASS took part in the 2023 SAGANET Awards, a competition in which participants can show a serious game they developed.

Camille Lefebvre, PhD candidate at the Graduate School of International Studies of Université Laval and the Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society of Leiden Law School, has been selected as a recipient of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Fellowship and Leadership Program.

The worldwide protests following the police violence in the United States show how deep-rooted and wide-spread racism is across the world. As an academic institution doing research on law & society, the Van Vollenhoven Institute is very much aware of systemic racism and speaks out in support of these…

De IND wil - ondanks het bewind van Taliban in Afghanistan - meerdere Afghaanse vrouwen terugsturen. Verschillende experts van vijf Nederlandse universiteiten – waaronder Mark Klaassen, universitair docent immigratierecht - zeggen in Trouw unaniem dat het terugsturen van vrouwen onacceptabel is.

Government leaders have been searching for words to condemn the actions of Belarus which intercepted a passenger aircraft flying from Athens to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, having a fighter plane divert it to Minsk.

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.

OSCL members, amongst which our representative in the Archaeology faculty, were part of Data Carpentry for Social Sciences. Here's what happened.

In the field of metabolomics, capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (CE-MS) has become a very useful analytical technique for the profiling of highly polar and charged metabolites in biological samples. In order to highlight the unique features of CE-MS for metabolomics studies, Dr. Rawi Ramautar…

‘Nederland is verworden tot een digitale kolonie en dit is ondermijnend voor onze democratie’ stelt Reijer Passchier, universitair docent staatsrecht en hoogleraar digitalisering en democratische rechtsstaat aan de OU, in een uitzending van NPO-radio1.

Religions involve belief in the unbelievable: in evil spirits causing disease, in souls surviving death, and in gods punishing wrongdoers and blessing the just. Cognitive studies suggest that humans are predisposed to speculate about fate and divine agency, but support from so-called ‘plausibility structures’…

Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade has received a special award: the Order of St. Mellitus, in recognition of her services to the history of the Bishops of London.

On Wednesday 19 October 2022, the graduation ceremony for the International Relations MA programme took place. In the Teylerszaal of the Academy Building, the cohort of Master's students received their diploma.

Anmol Dhawan (24) graduated cum laude from the Advanced LLM in Air and Space Law in Leiden on 28 August 2023. He comes from Mumbai in India and did his bachelor law studies at National Law University Delhi. He has been in the Netherlands since September 2022, so over one year now.

An interesting Ottoman History podcast that deals with the slave trade and the African Diaspora in Ottoman Izmir.

Carola Schoor, programme manager for Public Affairs at the Centre for Professional Learning (CPL), reflects on Politico on the State of the European Union speech by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen from a political strategy and messaging perspective.

Ineke Sluiter, Professor of Greek Language and Literature, has been appointed Corresponding Fellow by the British Academy. Every year the Academy selects the best researchers from the humanities and social sciences in the UK as well as outside as Fellows.

Plastic pollution is a major global problem. In Geneva, world leaders are discussing a possible plastics treaty. Lecturer Esther Kentin talked to Dutch news platform NU.nl about the UN summit: ‘A treaty is only a small part of the solution.’

Nicholas Vrousalis, lecturer in Political Philosophy at the Institute of Political Science of Leiden University, has been elected to a fellowship at Princeton University. During the academic year 2015/16, Vrousalis will be based at Princeton University's Center for Human Values, where he will write…

For some years, large tech companies have breached copyright law by using creative expressions from artists to train AI tools. Dirk Visser, Professor of Intellectual Property Law, spoke to ‘Financieele Dagblad’: 'Artists may lose the motivation to create new art.'

Geopolitiek, klimaat, pandemieën, migratie, AI, genderpolitiek: de wereld van vandaag verandert in in meerdere opzichten. Hoe ga je als bestuursorganisatie om met deze veranderingen? Dat was het thema van de tweede internationale conferentie van het Leiden University's Global Transformations and Governance…

As a result of the decentralisation of responsibilities in the public domain, most Dutch municipalities have created community teams. These community teams are tasked with providing easy access to care and support for citizens and with providing solutions to fit their individual needs. This requires…

On 27 September 2019, Bart Schuurman, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs spoke to Dutch regional newspaper 'de Gelderlander' about the decline in attention for jihadism.

Every year, the ‘Kluitersprijs’ is awarded to students who achieve excellent results in the minor Intelligence Studies.

Under #TheCode European media report about Martijn Nouwens’s research on the secretive EU Code of Conduct Group which is tasked with tackling harmful tax competition in Europe. The stories expose to the wider public for the first time how this diplomatic high-level working group of EU Member States…

On Tuesday 11 January 2022, the new year at the faculty was ushered in with an online event. Dean Joanne van der Leun toasted the new year and of course the annual Meijers prizes and thesis awarded were presented.

Reijer Passchier, Assistant Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, recently published a statement entitled 'The AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park Asked the Wrong Questions' in the International Journal of Social Quality.

Ady Roxburgh has been awarded a two-year grant to continue his research into the choices behind the composition of Roman, copper-alloy artefacts. The Estonian Research Council has awarded him a fully funded Mobilitas Pluss postdoctoral grant. The Evaluation Committee decided to fund the first 5 applications…

English student Anna Carey has won the Student and City film competition. Her promotional film for Leiden as a student city was the best of the 12 entries.