Cramming from a book, making notes or learning summaries. In the past these were about the only ways to memorise your course material. But that has long since changed. Multimedia is the code word. But is it effective?

Western civil servants openly struggle with their government’s policies on the war in Gaza. During a meeting at Campus The Hague, three former civil servants told their stories.

On Wednesday 9 March, a Faculty meeting about the war in Ukraine was held for staff and students in the Lorentz Lecture Hall. By the time the meeting started at 17.00 hrs, the 220 available seats in the lecture hall had been filled mainly by large numbers of students.

With its FestivOWL theme, Orientation Week Leiden (OWL) promises to be one big festival for new international students in Leiden.

Author and political scientist Mounir Samuel has spent recent years delving into the many ways that language can exclude people and bring them together.

Why do innocent people sometimes spend years in prison? EUREX is a registry of miscarriages of justice in Europe that ultimately led to exonerations. The aim is to prevent such mistakes being made in future. One of the initiators is Leiden legal psychologist Linda Geven.

The EU is aiming to deter economic coercion with a new legal instrument. Freya Baetens will elucidate this in her inaugural lecture on October 27th.

Organisation, Human resources, Research

Master student Encyclopedie en filosofie van het recht Marlotte Roldaan vertrok in januari 2024 voor vijf maanden naar de Verenigde Staten om daar in San Francisco te gaan studeren. Haar advies voor mensen die twijfelen: ‘Gooi jezelf in het diepe’.

For more than twenty years, Johan Visser has served as a family and juvenile court judge in The Hague where he is also a board member. Once a student at Leiden Law School, he reflects here on his student days and career.

Stilzitten doet alumnus Bart Jansen niet graag. Zo geeft hij les in onder meer Nederland, Maleisië en Curaçao, houdt hij zich naast het recht ook graag bezig met kunst en mystiek en vindt hij naar eigen zeggen ‘alles wat fout gaat’ wel interessant aan de rechtsfilosofie. ‘Ik ben gek op veelzijdige mensen;…

Protests have been raging in Iran for two months since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. The role of social media in the protests against the Iranian regime should not be underestimated, says Senior Assistant Professor and Iranian Babak RezaeeDaryakenari.

Dr Robert Heinsch and his team of IHL Clinic researchers at the Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum on International Humanitarian Law have won a prestigious Erasmus+ grant for cooperation partnerships in higher education in cooperation with the IHL Clinics at Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany) and Roma Tre University…

Did you know that PhD candidates are also alumni of your alma mater? High time to put a PhD alumna and her research in the spotlight. Besides, this month our UNICEF Chair in Children’s Rights is celebrating its tenth anniversary.

‘We could share our knowledge more with others and apply it more widely,’ said Annetje Ottow, President of the Executive Board, while presenting the new Strategic Plan on the University’s 447th Dies Natalis. The new Strategic Plan therefore focuses on innovating and connecting, among disciplines and…

Mark Driessen is an Assistant professor at the Faculty of Archaeology.

Lecture, Studium Generale

Leiden University’s President of the Executive Board, Professor Annetje Ottow, has been reappointed for a second term by the Board of Governors.

Every Sunday you can help fish plastic and other floating garbage out of the Leiden canals. You can use your own canoe or loan one from Plastic Spotter and join the garbage-fishing fleet. Annetje Ottow, President of Leiden University, was one of the crew on Sunday 4 July.

After a turbulent Covid year, the well-being of our students and staff has the highest priority. How can we prevent physical and mental health problems? This was the key question at the Opening of the Academic Year in Pieterskerk in Leiden on 6 September.

Timo Kos has been appointed Vice President of Leiden University’s Executive Board and will take up the role on 1 March 2025. He succeeds Martijn Ridderbos, who will join the board of the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) on 1 January 2025.

Dutch artist and visionary David Humbert de Superville (1770-1849) was the founder and first director of the Print Room at Leiden University. An exhibition and symposium are now being organised in his honour. What makes him so remarkable?

The Schoof cabinet has presented its budget. As expected, higher education is facing severe cuts. In the coming period, the Executive Board will regularly look at the consequences of what it deems an irresponsible policy.

In the online panel discussion of ESOF 2022 ‘The effect of the online world on adolescents’, together with Amy Orben, Professor Eveline Crone, Sterre van Riel, Professor Anne-Laura van Harmelen and Professor Jan Sleutels, Professor Ton Liefaard shared his research on adolescents and the online world…

The Schoof cabinet has presented its budget. As expected, higher education is facing severe cuts. In the coming period, the Executive Board will regularly look at the consequences of what it deems an irresponsible policy.

The Grand Parade was a festive highlight of the 450th anniversary celebration of 3 October. Students and staff members from Leiden University participated with an impressive float.

The new cabinet has finally taken office. Six of its members studied in Leiden, once again making the University a key supplier to the cabinet. Who are these alumni?

The year 2025 is a special milestone: we’ll celebrate our anniversary as a university community together with all the faculties. On 7 February, the Dies Natalis will mark Leiden University’s 450th birthday. Leiden Law School is one of the faculties also celebrating 450 years. So, at our faculty extra…

Scrap the radical cuts to research and teaching. This was researchers and students’ message to government at the opening of the new academic year. Various speakers in Leiden’s Pieterskerk highlighted the importance of science for society.

The university was a gift from William of Orange to the people of Leiden for their courageous resistance to the Spanish. We’ve all heard the story of the university’s foundation. But its foundation was also a success story for two friends.

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 month's flash interview is with alumna Sytske Besemer, Criminologist, who works at a startup called Cradle. Sytske has specifically chosen to work for a company with societal impact. And she is about to move again, this time to Zürich.

The rise of populist parties, the expansion of the role of the state and now the fragmentation of the Senate and the House of Representatives: Dutch political reality has changed rapidly over recent decades. These developments are in stark contrast to Dutch constitutional law that has remained almost…

Professor of Modern China Florian Schneider researches what people do with technology and what technology does with people. Social media, for example. And then mainly in China.

On 15 October 2021, the EFTA Court held its annual conference in Luxembourg, this year under the title 'People in the EEA'. The EFTA Court is in charge of cases arising under the law of the European Economic Areas (EEA) in the EEA/EFTA states Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. Christa Tobler was invited…

The Rutte IV cabinet will be sworn in soon. A fifth of the prospective ministers and secretaries of state studied in Leiden. Who are they and what did they study?

Conference

The Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW) has appointed four Leiden professors as members. Petra Sijpesteijn, Vanessa Mak, Mariska Kret and Miranda van Eck have recently joined the KHMW.

Investigation services and cyber criminals both make grateful use of the opportunities offered by digital technologies. Both groups' use of these services leads to breaches of privacy for citizens. The current legislation falls short in providing protective measures, is the conclusion reached by Professor…

Assistant Professor Karlsson Linnér, who works at the Department of Economics, is one of the recipients of a Veni grant. His research on the accuracy of preventive genetic testing is a fine example of the intersection of economic science and law.

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 Municipality of The Hague, Leiden University and CBRE Investment Management (CBRE IM) will together try to realise a University building in the former Hudson’s Bay premises at Grote Marktstraat 48-50/Spui 3. This will facilitate the growth of Campus The Hague. A cooperation agreement was signed…

What started as pioneering work, has evolved over decades to become a renowned institute in 2025 with an internationally acclaimed master's programme. 'Almost everyone involved in the aviation and space sector knows us in Leiden.'

Leiden University is a member of the Una Europa European alliance. This partnership of 11 research-intensive universities is working to shape the university of the future.

As part of the course 'Masterclass at the Court of The Hague', twelve law students spent several days at the court with judges, court lawyers and legal advisers over the course of seven weeks. At the final session on 13 March, they presented their experiences.

Lecture

Leiden University and the Municipality of The Hague signed a collaboration agreement on sustainability on 1 November. Their main goals are to build a network, share knowledge and explore the possibilities of a Climate Centre for the people of The Hague.

A group of nine activists from Students for Palestine occupied part of the Academy Building on Wednesday 26 November. Outside, a group of around 30 demonstrators chanted slogans and called on the Executive Board to sever ties with Israeli universities.