Palestinian national Abu Zubaydah was captured by the CIA in March 2002 and has remained in detention ever since, without any form of trial. Leiden professor Helen Duffy is doing all she can to secure his release or a fair trial. Her hopes now lie on international pressure and the UN Working Group on…

The role of the Board of Examiners is to ensure that study programmes adhere to their Course and Examination Regulations. The Board of Examiners oversees all tests and examinations within the institute and determines whether students have acquired the knowledge and skills required for the awarding of…

Dialogue session

Hoe kan het dat universele mensenrechten wereldwijd niet hetzelfde in de praktijk worden gebracht?

Quantum Rules lab van Leiden Universiteit biedt proefjes en experimenten voor middelbare scholieren om te leren over kwantum natuurkunde. Henk Buisman vertelt over het 5 jarige jubileum.

Is it possible to measure subtle oscillations caused by dark matter moving through the earth? A Dutch-American physicist team have discovered a new route toward what could be the first-ever measurement of ultralight dark matter. They suspended a microscopic magnet inside a superconducting enclosure,…

Professor Sarah de Rijcke will become the new Rector Magnificus on the Executive Board of Leiden University on 15 January 2026. She will succeed Professor Hester Bijl, who will become Rector Magnificus at Delft University of Technology.

The rapid economic development of recent decades has made China a destination for migrants from all parts of the world. What does Chinese migration policy say about the priorities and functioning of this global power? PhD candidate Tabitha Speelman has conducted research on this.

Professor Nira Wickramasinghe has won the American Historical Association John F. Richards Prize in South Asian History for her book Slave in a Palanquin. Colonial Servitude and Resistance in Sri Lanka' (Columbia University Press: New York 2020).

A Student Living Room, free period products and a wide variety of events. Over the past year, the Student Support Team at Leiden Law School has taken measures to turn the faculty into a safe, accessible social space for all students. They’ve been reflecting on the past year.

How can The Netherlands, France and Germany cooperate more closely on issues such as European security and defence. Join the kick off of The European Strategic Dialogue Series, an initiative by the Institute of Security and Global Affairs and its partners in France and Germany. Joachim Koops tells more…

How can Europe lead the way in vaccine development that is fast and for all? To answer this pressing question, Professor of Vaccinology Meta Roestenberg is holding a panel session on 14 July at the EuroScience Open Forum in Leiden.

What defence strategy should the Dutch government adopt for the next four years? Our experts advise investing in social resilience, strengthening ‘soft power’ and integrating defence awareness into education.

China is actively attempting to silence critical voices about the country, including in the Netherlands. This is the main conclusion of a report on Chinese interference and intimidation within the Dutch media landscape. The media are often not well prepared for this.

A year ago, assistant professor Paz Gonzalez received a Comenius grant to start an academic journal for and by students. Now the first double issue of The New Scholar is a reality. ‘We want to show the faculty’s diversity.’

The nominees for the IRO thesis prize 2023 and the Prof. Dr. J.Th.J. van den Berg-prijs 2023. Who wrote the best bachelor theses in Political Science?

Nearly all students have faced many challenges this academic year. Students Nasreen Javanjoo (Religious Studies) and Marcos Cordova (Literary Studies) talk about their experiences of studying in the time of coronavirus.

If you could design your own education, how would you do it? That is what the students of the Bachelor Honours Class 'Rebuilding Education' asked themselves. The students were divided into five groups in which they designed workshops to improve education. They presented their workshops in December in…

The Economist published an article about a working paper about the effects of democratic elections on satisfaction with democracy. The paper was written by Dimiter Koshkov, Associate Professor at the Institute of Public Administration and Honorata Mazepus, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security…

The Faculty of Archaeology is running a funding scheme to assist small-scale projects that contribute to diversifying archaeological practice in all domains, including classrooms, laboratories, museums, and the field. We discuss the grant with two representatives from the Diversity Committee: Tuna Kalaycı…

A diverse (ad hoc) committee will advise Leiden University’s Executive Board on its exhibitions policy in a broad sense, with a special focus on the painting by Rein Dool in the Academy Building.

The Pieter de la Court building will be given a new name. This was decided by the university's Executive Board in the summer of 2025, at the request of the FSW Faculty Board. The name will no longer be used for our faculty's main building or the student medal.

Vedran Dunjko appointed to full professor of quantum computing at Leiden University, the Netherlands.

Algorithms solve problems. But which algorithm is best suited to which problem? During his doctoral research, Diederick Vermetten developed methods to figure this out. And that is important for the entire field.

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…

All Political Science graduates have good reasons to be proud of themselves, having successfully completed their studies and having demonstrated considerable personal growth. This October, fifteen bachelor students can be extra proud: their theses were nominated for a thesis prize. In the class of 2023,…

Dilara Erzeybek and Oumaima Hajri, two PhD students in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology received a Mosaic 2.0 grant last week. This NWO programme supports PhD students with a non-western migration background - an underrepresented group within science - in order to foster diversity in…

How does audio-visual material shape the identity of people when those people do not own their own land and are being oppressed? Bahar Simsek delved into the effect of film on the Kurdish identity. She will obtain her PhD on 4 May.

On Wednesday 27 September we will be holding a debate for students and staff on our links with the fossil fuel industry in relation to the topic of sustainability. All students and staff of the university are cordially invited. If you’re still not sure about whether to attend, these four questions and…

On 8 December, in honour of Human Rights Week, Roeland Böcker gave a public lecture about his experiences as ambassador to the Council of Europe. Between 2017 and 2021, Roeland Böcker was the representative of the Netherlands in the Council of Europe.

Leiden astronomy Master's student Arend Moerman has received an A+ for his thesis research on the simulation of chaotic interactions of three black holes. The simulations, which he carried out together with his Leiden and Oxford colleagues, show that lighter black holes tend to slingshot each other…

When Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February, normal life there came to a halt. To ensure that affected students and researchers can continue their studies and work, professor Ellen Rutten (UvA) and assistant professor Dorine Schellens (Leiden) set up an international mentor network.

Rodrigo Ochigame’s project explores how AI redefines scientific evidence, aiming to help scientists critically navigate these transformations with the Veni grant.

Confronting your own biases, students of the course ‘Adults and Children in a Polarising World’ are not afraid to do exactly that. ‘The fact that my expectations of the interview were not in line with the outcome, was very informative.’

First-year Public Administration students write consultancy report for municipality The Hague

Various guests with a background in human rights, law, politics and international relations will be taking part in the ‘Human Rights and the World Cup Qatar’ debate on Friday 30 September. Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) Secretary-General and Leiden alumnus Gijs de Jong will be there to provide…

On 22 August was the start of the HOPweek, the introduction week for first year students studying at Campus The Hague of Leiden University. First year students were assigned to their own group with their own mentors. During this week the students could do fun activities and workshops where they got…

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…

Too expensive groceries, diseases suddenly breaking out: from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, hundreds of people documented the world around them in chronicles. A significant number of these texts have been digitised in recent years. Professor of Early Modern Dutch History and project leader…

Adults who lost a parent during childhood tend to experience greater attachment anxiety in romantic relationships, according to Carline van Heijningen’s doctoral research. However, this anxiety was less pronounced among those who recall having a strong bond with their deceased parent during childhoo…

Aprovechando la conferencia Spinoza, Nanne Timmer, Universitair Docent LUCAS, le hace unas preguntas a la escritora y Premio Reina Sofía Gioconda Belli sobre su poesía y su lugar en la Nicaragua de hoy.

What do you derive your self-esteem from? Not a question you would quickly expect in a course on leadership. Lecturer Michel Don Michaloliákos opted for a unique approach to 'A Taste of Leadership', an Honours course with introspection as its core theme.

How has evolution shaped our curiosity? And how does that curiosity ensure that we now have the technological ability to discover whether we are alone in the universe? This was all covered during the celebration of Leiden University’s 449th Dies Natalis.

Three Psychology students will present a poster of their thesis research on Alzheimer’s and dementia at the international conference AAIC Neuroscience Next. ‘I remind myself to recognise - without fear or shame - when I don't know something.’

Almost three years after receiving her honorary doctorate, Dr Graça Machel returned to Leiden University. Over the course of two days she spoke with students, researchers, and other interested persons, about human rights – particularly those of women and children – in a world in which these are continually…

Should we cut our ties with Israel or maintain them? The event ‘A university conversation on Israel/Palestine’ on 1 July revealed the depth of feeling about the conflict, with students and staff grappling with academic values and moral dilemmas.

Why do some smokers quit much more easily than others? Can we think ourself to insomnia? And does playing music together help to calm conflicts? Psychology students investigated these questions and presented their findings during the Psychology Science Day 2023.

More papers, more grants, more students: constant growth is still the gold standard at universities. Neuroscientists Anne Urai and Claire Kelly argue that this mentality obstructs us in resolving such complex societal problems as the climate crisis. Their alternative? The university as a doughnut.

Een mijlpaal voor de Class of 2025 van de MSc International Relations and Diplomacy: een prestigieuze en internationale opleiding gevierd in Den Haag en Leiden.

Most people talk about truck drivers rather than to them. That’s an error of judgement, says PhD candidate Anke van der Hoeven, who explains why we should be making their lives easier. ‘People just don’t realise it, but they’re an invisible group that keeps the European economy running.’