Those who apply for asylum at the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) are often asked about their main reason for migration. This process puts asylum seekers in a specific category, while their experiences are often much more complex and multifaceted. With his research on queer migration, PhD…

From cities that sometimes deviate from national foreign policy to the direct influence of geopolitics on local developments, PhD candidate Pieter Jeroense, director of VNG International, examined seventy years of the internationalisation of Dutch municipalities and observed notable trends.

Hydropower plants need not be disastrous for fishermen and nature. For that, we need to place new dams more strategically, but also modify or even remove some existing ones. Valerio Barbarossa and Rafael Schmitt showed that with a computer model of the Asian Mekong basin.

Accelerating the development of new cancer medicines by joining forces—that’s the mission of Oncode Accelerator, a Dutch consortium that recently welcomed three Leiden-based PhD candidates. Under the guidance of Gerard van Westen, Marc Boef, Remco van den Broek, and Lucina-May Nollen are exploring how…

On February 29 2024, the Humanities Career Service of Leiden University organised a career day to the European Union institutions in Brussels. Natalia Papageorgiou, student of the MA History (Politics, Culture and National Identities), talks about how the day went.

Horses were first domesticated in South-West Russia, is the conclusion drawn by an international team of researchers writing in the well-respected journal Nature. Their conclusion resolves a longstanding archaeological question. But, surprisingly enough, this domestication did not contribute to the…

On Monday 28 March a ‘pen test’ will be carried out to check the security of the classroom scanners. These people counters in University buildings were temporarily switched off in December after there was growing disquiet about privacy aspects of the devices. The pen test will be carried out in the…

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing? What kinds of things is he doing and what does his day look like? In each newsletter Jasper gives a peek into his life as dean.

On Wednesday 5 November, Jasper sets off on the annual study trip for the Board of Deans together with the Executive Board. Because of budget cuts, they’re staying a bit closer to home this year. But that doesn’t make the trip any less enjoyable — as you’ll read in this column.

Rapid developments in DNA techniques allow researchers to find out more and more about human genetics. An international group of scientists has drawn up five ethical guidelines to ensure that this DNA research is better regulated. Leiden archaeologist Marie Soressi – one of the signatories - explains…

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing, what exactly does he do and what does his day look like? In each newsletter, Jasper gives an insight into his life.

Eva Loeve (22), a fourth-year student of Cultural Anthropology, worked for five months at Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO). At the end of May 2021, the report "Spinning Around Workers' Rights" about working conditions in spinning mills in South India was published, on which Eva…

Communication is the transmission of information. All day long we are busy explaining and making things clear to each other, but exactly how we do that varies from language to language. Associate Professor Jenneke van der Wal delved into African Bantu languages for a Vidi project.

Peter Stevenhagen delivered daily lectures at the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering in Lahore, in collaboration with ICTP, a well-known UNESCO institute in Trieste. The aim is to enhance it he knowledge of students from low- and middle-income countries. ‘By teaching here, I can truly…

Thousands of first-year students and hundreds of mentors kicked off the EL CID on Monday morning. This year for the first time, the introduction week of Leiden University and Leiden University of Applied Sciences was also open for students of Regional Training Centre mboRijnland and the Leiden Instrument…

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.

Arts and culture, Studium Generale

Do your interests lie in underwater archaeology and do you have relevant diving experience? Then you might want to apply to an exciting field school taking place this summer in northeastern Germany.

Lecture, Unfolding Finitudes

'It gave our team a big boost to hear that our work was valuable,' says medical chemist Elmer Maurits about the moment they won the Venture Challenge. With their company Iprotics, they want to develop a drug that can better treat patients with autoimmune diseases and blood cancers. 25,000 euros of prize…

Vivian van der Linde completed her masters Crisis & Security Management in the summer of 2020 by writing a thesis on Dieselgate. Freshly graduated, she felt she wanted to do more with her research. But how do you go about that, having just finished studying? Together with her thesis supervisor Wouter Jong…

For the following years, Dr Aitor Burguet-Coca will be a returning face at the Faculty of Archaeology. He will join Dr Amanda Henry’s team with his expertise on prehistoric fire use and the methodologies that studying ancient hearths requires.

The one-day symposium ‘War in Europe: the impact of Russian aggression in Ukraine two years on’ on 23 February 2024

The pews of the Walloon Church were filled on Friday 23 May, as more than 120 former students of the French Language and Culture programme gathered to attend mini-lectures, a short theatre performance, and a discussion about the state of the discipline.

Women are more often diagnosed with depression, whereas ADHD is much more frequently detected in men. And there are other more striking differences. What role does the brain play in mental health and what is the influence of the environment? For answers to these questions, listen to the ‘(Un)gendered…

The celebration of the university’s 450th anniversary is not confined to the walls of the university. For the 7th time, professors stood in front of the class of grade 7, in both Leiden and The Hague. Four FGGA professors visited primary schools, introducing the children to research questions such as…

This year’s edition of PRINS, the International Studies’ consultancy course, proved to be an inspiring event for most of its participants. Students, coaches and representatives of organisations are looking back on this rollercoaster of a course and reflect on why the PRINS experience is so special.

Lecture

Symposium

Career and apply for jobs

Educators in European science museums sometimes think rather differently about the definition of an 'authentic' object. They think carefully about how they present those objects to teach visitors something or make them curious. This was shown in research by the Science Communication & Society department.…

Weekly Workshop

The Master of Laws: Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights (LL.M.) was launched in 2015 to equip a generation of professionals to protect the rights of children worldwide. As the programme celebrates its 10th anniversary, we reflect on its impact.

Annetje Ottow is stepping down as President of Leiden University’s Executive Board on 1 September 2025 after almost five years in the role. She looks back at the highs and lows – and ahead to what’s next.

Internationalisation is an important pillar of the Strategic Plan of Leiden University and Leiden Law School. The driving force behind internationalisation at our faculty is the Office for International Education (known as BIO). The Head of BIO is Anette van Sandwijk. Now the current political climate…

‘Teaching is not merely a profession; it’s a calling.’ These were the words of Ayo Adedokun on winning the LUS Teaching Prize at the opening of the academic year on 6 September. The prize is for the best lecturer of the year.

Sergei Boeke has once again proven that there are more roads than one that lead to Rome with his PhD research into al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. It is both the core point of his conclusions as well as the leitmotiv for his approach. Boeke’s dissertation is comprised of five academic articles that…

André Leliveld has won a grant of 100,000 euros within the Comenius Senior Fellow programme for the project ‘Learning globally, acting locally: co-creation of an international multidisciplinary online learning environment around Frugal Innovation'. André is academic coordinator of the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus…

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…

An international research team is to search for invisible life in the Galápagos Islands. The diversity of bacteria and other microscopic organisms may not be evident to the naked eye, but it is essential to nature. To the islands' giant daisies, for instance: unique endemic plants that are currently…

Working towards a more inclusive and diverse society, next to your studies. Humanities students Aline-Priscillia Messi and Ruşen Koç devote a considerable amount of hours to this every week. Now they have been nominated for an ECHO Award.

NATO not only safeguards our security and stability, but also defends Enlightenment principles, promoting prosperity, health and freedom. This is what eminent psychologist and thinker Steven Pinker argued to a packed Great Auditorium.

After two years of corona restrictions, it was ‘back to normal’ in 2022. Migration, elections, the history of slavery, Russia, and Ukraine were much-discussed topics. We compiled an overview of the most-read news items and other events of the past year.

It was his thesis supervisor during his master's in Film and Photographic Studies who encouraged Shivan Shazad to pursue a second master's in diversity policy at Ghent. He is now Manager of Diversity and Inclusion at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

In the spring of 2024 the Faculty of Archaeology welcomed a new postdoc. Dr Adam Benfer, originally from the United States, occupies a double position as a researcher in the project of Alex Geurds and as the Faculty’s Data Steward. ‘It is pretty much what the title says: I steward data. Essentially,…

Photographer and Visual Ethnography alumna Wilke Geurds captured special encounters during her travels. As an anthropologist, Wilke is always curious about other countries, people and cultural customs. That curiosity forms the core of her new photo exhibition, which can be seen during the Kunstroute…

On Tuesday 30 September 2025, PhD candidate Kathleen Brown will defend her dissertation 'Deception, Risk, and Evasion: The Politics of Sovereign Debt in Emerging Markets' in Leiden’s Academy Building. Her research sheds light on the hidden world of sovereign debt politics, revealing how governments…

Almost all the western countries were too late responding to the outbreak of Covid. Why was that? Three governance experts, including Leiden professor Arjen Boin, have written a book about the response to the pandemic. ‘Our current system isn’t geared towards identifying and managing a long-term crisis,’…

The end of the year often means looking back with lists, overviews and stories. This combines nicely in a list of all the books published this year by various political scientists at Leiden University. Indeed, in terms of books, these scholars have certainly not been idle. A unique collection of stories,…