PhD candidate Agnes van Steen researched the history of the Leiden women’s rights movement (1860-1990) and found that the university produced many feminists.

A cover over your drink in the pub, deodorant as pepper spray or headphones to avoid hearing catcalling: many women use everyday objects to feel safer in public spaces. Student Anne van der Linden made an online exhibition about this.

Title research: A global framework to regulate non-state actors working with children.

Master

Master

Diana Davila Gordillo is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics at the Institute of Political Science.

It often takes longer for women with heart problems to get the right diagnosis. In her Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture, Professor Hester den Ruijter will talk about how hormones influence the heart and the importance of medical research that focuses specifically on women.

Sheila Varadan is an Assistant Professor of Children’s Rights and Global Health in a joint appointment with the Department of Health and Child Law and the African Studies Centre Leiden (ASCL). Sheila is also part of the Leiden University Network for Health in Africa (LUNHA), an interdisciplinary research…

Rick Lawson has a chair in European Protection of Human Rights since 2001; he is part of the Europa Instituut of Leiden Law School. He was appointed, as of 1 September 2025, as the Chairperson of the College voor de Rechten van de Mens, the National Human Rights Institute of the Netherlands. As of this…

Vasiliki Kosta is Associate Professor of European Law at Leiden University. Her research is characterised by an interest in EU Fundamental Rights Law and more broadly in ‘horizontal’ issues, i.e. institutional and constitutional questions spanning different core policy areas of EU Law. She currenlty…

It was not until 1878 that the first female students enrolled at Leiden University, but the discussion on whether women were suited to study was by no means over. 8 March is International Women's Day. BBC correspondente Kim Ghattas will deliver a lecture on 6 March on the struggle by Arabic women for…

Luísa Pinto e Netto is an assistant professor at Leiden University specialized in fundamental rights, with a particular focus on social rights. Following her career as a state attorney in Brazil and a PhD on the development of fundamental rights, she is building a research agenda in the Netherlands…

As of 1 May 2019, McGonagle holds the chair in Media Law & Information Society. The chair is financed by the A.W. Hins Fund, administered by the Leiden University Fund. Tarlach specializes in a range of issues relating to media law and the information society: freedom of expression; the interface between…

Every year, Leiden University hosts the Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture to mark International Women’s Day. This year, historian Nadia Bouras will speak about academic freedom, class and being a woman in academia. And that is just as relevant to men, says lecturer and organiser Looi van Kessel.

Over a thousand women ended up in a State workhouse between 1886 and 1934. This was a place for vagrants, beggars and drunkards: people who were said to be too lazy to work. Who were these women who were sent there? PhD candidate Marian Weevers found out.

Nadia Bouras will give the Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture on 6 March. She will call for academic freedom for everyone.

Who assembled the collections of museums? The answer to this question seems to point to men as collectors. Apart from for rare exceptions, female collectors hardly seem to exist. Yet there were indeed women collectors. For the project Museums, Collections and Society, researcher Holly O'Farrell will…

The proportion of female professors at Dutch universities is increasing, but at a modest rate. At 34.2%, Leiden University is in the top three. These are the results of the Women Professors Monitor for 2025.

Lucy Ataro Opoka is since 1st September 2021, connected to Meijers Research Institute and Graduate School as a PhD Research Candidate.

Mirjam Sombroek van Doorm (1968) has been appointed professor of Law and Health at the Department of Juvenile Law & Health Law of the Institute of Private Law since 1 October 2022. The broad remit of Law and Health reflects the ambition to strengthen (interdisciplinary) cooperation between the various…

Two statues of gorillas abducting women: they were what led PhD candidate Dick van Broekhuizen to write a new type of history of nineteenth-century sculpture. ‘If you view nineteenth-century art history from a less narrow perspective, the narrative changes completely.’ PhD ceremony on 21 June.

Dr. Kristof Gombeer is an Assistant Professor at the Europa Institute of the Leiden Law School. He researches in the field of human rights law and at the intersection between European law and public international law. He teaches in the bachelor's and master's programmes.

Titia Loenen is Professor 'emeritus' of Human Rights and Diversity at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law.

Women confined to the kitchen? Not in Scheveningen around 1900. There, some women ran entire shipping companies. This is according to new research by history student Sjors Stuurman. He compiled the results in a book he wrote for Muzee Scheveningen.

Alumna Tiziana Lippiello became the first female rector magnificus of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice last year. In this way, she hopes to contribute to emancipation in the academic world: 'We need more women here.'

Adam Fairclough is Professor Emeritus of American History at the Leiden University Institute for History (Leiden University Chair of the History and Culture of North America, from 2005 to 2016).

Peter Rodrigues is Professor of Immigration Law of the University of Leiden.