On 11 June 2020, Sabine Witting defended her thesis 'Child Sexual Abuse in the Digital Era: Rethinking Legal Frameworks and Transnational Law Enforcement Collaboration'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. J.J. Sloth-Nielsen and Prof. S. van der Hof.

The rise of the digital age affects public governance in many ways. Digitalisation and data impact every aspect of public governance and policy. Within Leiden University’s Public Administration institute, based in The Hague -the administrative capital of the Netherlands- our centre seeks to understand…

Blended and hybrid teaching are presented as crucial in promoting teaching innovation, as well as more flexible study approaches allowing students to develop their own tailor-made study programmes. While the strategy document focuses on the positive aspects of digital teaching tools, no systematic study…

How does the social infrastructure affect administrative burdens associated with digital government services? The paper 'Administrative burden in digital public service delivery: The social infrastructure of library programs for e-inclusion' published in the Review of Policy Research by Sarah Giest…

Damien Van Puyvelde and Paul Oling explore how government intelligence agencies can effectively collaborate with the private technology sector to meet their evolving technological needs, focusing particularly on emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing.

This interdisciplinary study focuses on (trans)national ethnic and popular networks, combining historical-ethnographic and computational methods to understand the ‘workings’ of networked conflict interfering in the increasingly violent conflict in the Sahel (Africa) and beyond. The project focuses on…

On Tuesday 15 September 2015, Bart de Smit has been appointed as professor of Algebra and Number Theory at the Mathematical Institute of Leiden University.

As a lawyer, how can you contribute to ensuring that the best interests of the child play a greater role in immigration law? That question was the topic of asylum lawyer Bart Toemen's guest lecture in the course ‘Kind en migratie’ (child and migration), given in the master’s programme ‘Jeugdrecht’ (Child…

Professor Jan-Bart Gewald has been appointed as the new director of the African Studies Centre in Leiden with effect from 1 September 2017, for a period of five years. Professor Gewald will succeed Ton Dietz, who will be retiring in September.

eLaw is a research institute of interdisciplinary scholars who explore issues at the intersection of law, technology and society.

From the 1920s on, popular music in Southeast Asia was a mass-audience phenomenon that drew new connections between indigenous musical styles and contemporary genres from elsewhere to create new, hybrid forms. This book presents a cultural history of modern Southeast Asia from the vantage point of popular…

Deepfakes are videos that have been manipulated to replace one person’s likeness with that of another. They can be difficult to distinguish from authentic videos. In our study, we found that people who score high on conspiracy thinking and people who use social media more are better at distinguishing…

Although the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) harmonizes the protection of personal data across the EU as of May 2018, its open norms in combination with cultural differences between countries result in differences in the practical implementation, interpretation and enforcement of personal…

In this research project, the protection of personal data is compared in eight EU member states: France, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Romania, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands. The comparison of the countries is focused on government policies for the protection of personal data, the applicable laws and…

A new Special Issue with Transnational Legal Theory edited by Jelena Belic, Matthew Canfield, Henning Lahmann, Rachel Griffin, and Barrie Sander, brings together a collective of perspectives to unpack the promise and perils of human rights as a vocabulary for governing digital platforms.

Bart Schuurman is a research Fellow at the International Centre for Counterterrorism (ICCT) and at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) in The Hague. He was interviewed by Abigail Esman of the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) about his new book 'Becoming A European Homegrown Jihadist'.…

This doctoral project by artist and educator Luiz Zanotello engenders a postcolonial understanding of time, space and movement by means of artistic research methods. The project examines the contradictory effects of the abyssal line of thought within the tropics as a starting point.

On 5 September, Elize de Mul defended the thesis 'Digital Döppelgangers: identity in the Culture of Imagination'. The doctoral research was supervised by Simone van der Hof and Esther Keymolen.

The Digital Humanities and Cultural Analytics minor will be offered in the 2026 academic year, and replaces the 2025/2026 Digital Humanities and AI Minor.

The more people are vaccinated, the more society can slowly reopen. Technological developments, like the Covid passport and other apps, can play a role in this. Artificial Intelligence could help greatly in developing the vaccine passport and the Covid-19 exposure notification app, Anne Meuwese and…

On the 23d of May, Sanne Rotmeijer successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Sanne on this achievement!

To develop a new generation of brain science (and train scientists) focused on explaining complex real-world behavioural patterns.

A brief review essay on some of the work that has been recently published in the emergent field of digital ethnography.

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Here is an interview of Susanna Lindberg made in 2023 by Bart Buseyne and Paul Cruysberghs and published in 2025 in La Deleuziana: « Il va falloir inventer » – Susanna Lindberg en conversation

In what ways do matters of cybersecurity affect the relationship between governments and citizens, have a bearing on (fundamental) rights and civil liberties, and alter the role and responsibilities of governments?

The authors delve into the varying degrees to which institutions across different nations connect foreign events to their respective country's domestic affairs.

This inaugural lecture discusses the question: How to cooperate in the digital era?

While self-driving cars and autonomous weapon systems have received a great deal of attention in media and research, the general requirements of ethical life in today’s digitalizing reality have not been made sufficiently visible and evaluable.

What legislative and regulatory questions arise when children, adolescents or elderly people use the Internet?

In this article, Barrie Sander together with his colleagues explore whether fairness in digital governance inadvertently entrenches structural inequalities

Imagining Urban Complexity introduces passionate and critical perspectives on the link between the humanities and urban studies.

The abundance of images in our everyday lives-and the speed at which they are consumed-seems to have left us unable to critique them. To rectify this situation, artists such as Daniel Richter, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, and Artur Zmijewski have demonstrated that painting is brilliantly equipped to produce…

Latest technological developments in data mining and profiling.

D2.2 comprises the in-depth legal analysis of the initial heuristic model, focused on addressing, in more detail, the main legal concerns for data reusers in the European data economy. This detailed analysis of the legal propositions presented in D2.1 is supplemented by an analysis of the technological,…

D1.2 reports on the findings of an analysis of framework conditions relevant in the context of the data economy from a legal, a socio-economic and a technological perspective. The analysis is a key foundation for the creation of an initial, heuristic model of the European data economy. The deliverable…

Eduard Fosch-Villaronga and Hadassah Drukarch from eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies, recently published the book ‘AI for Healthcare Robotics’, published by CRC Press from Taylor and Francis Group in their AI for Everything Series.