We are delighted to announce two new exciting research projects at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies! Dr Misha Plagis and Dr Hilde Woker have each received a starter grant for their collaborative research projects. Dr Hilde Woker and Dr Jason Rudall have received funding for their project…

Between 11 and 13 September 2025, the ESIL Annual Conference took place in Berlin, Germany. This year's conference unfolded on the theme 'Reconstructing International Law', attracting an unprecedented number of legal scholars from all over the world.

The Austria Centre is pleased to welcome Dr. Lena Sadovski as a visiting scholar who will do research at Leiden University for a few months in 2023. We asked Dr. Sadovski a few questions about her doctoral work, her future research and what she wants to achieve during her time at Leiden.

The 1st CIGR meeting was held on March 30, 2021, with talks by representatives of all participating groups.

That's just learning parrot-fashion. This was the argument with which the proposal to establish a language lab at Leiden University was rejected in 1962. But six years later, the language lab was launched. And now the Academic Language Lab is celebrating its 50-year anniversary.

After 24 years of operations, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) will close its doors at the end of this year. To mark this significant moment in the history of international criminal law, the ICTY and the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies of Leiden Law…

During a workshop held in Bandung, Indonesia, on March 27, 2015, current and future research projects were presented by Prof.Dr. Ade Kramadibrata, Director of the Indonesian Resource Centre for Indigenous Knowledge (INRIK).

A large delegation from Leiden University’s Grotius Centre attended the annual conference of the European Society of International Law (ESIL) in Aix-en-Provence from 31 August to 2 September 2023. Staff members presented their research on various topics, adding to the scholarly discussion surrounding…

Professor of Psychiatry Anne Speckens studied medicine in Leiden and did her psychiatry training there too. She opened the Radboudumc Center for Mindfulness in Nijmegen. What does she do there and how does she look back on her time as a student?

Paramagnetism. An obscure occult practice? No. It’s one of the newest scientific methods for mapping the behaviour of proteins with great precision. Marcellus Ubbink has been awarded 3 million euro by NWO and Leiden University to purchase a very powerful instrument. The goal: to acquire greater insight…

On Thursday 3 November, Leiden University celebrated the official opening of two wall formulas in the Leiden city centre. Snell's law and the formula for the Lorentz force shine on two walls in the heart of Leiden. TV channel Omroep West interviewed the initiators Sense Jan van der Molen and Ivo van…

On 30 January 2024, the Maastricht Centre for European Law, in collaboration with the Globalization and Law Network at Maastricht University Faculty of Law, hosted a seminar featuring Simona Demková from the Europa Institute of Leiden University.

On 20 June, Freya Baetens delivered the keynote presentation at a workshop on

Professor Eric De Brabandere has been appointed as the new Director/Head of Department of the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, succeeding to Professor Nico Schrijver who has led the Centre for more than 12 years. Eric De Brabandere holds the chair of international dispute settlement law…

The Erasmus Training Centre in Jakarta supports the exchange of students and researchers between the Netherlands and Indonesia, with training courses and language lessons. The centre was opened officially on 13 February by Minister of Education Jet Bussemaker.

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.

Minister Dijkgraaf (Education, Culture and Science) has appointed Ionica Smeets and Alex Verkade as coordinators of a new national centre for science communication. The centre will foster a dialogue between researches and society and will gather and share expertise to make science communication more…

If researchers make their data FAIR, computers can link large quantities of data and identify patterns, thus greatly accelerating the process of arriving at new insights. In Leiden, the birthplace of ‘FAIR data’, Professor Barend Mons explains the meaning of this term.

The Physics and Quantum Matter and Optics specialisation is one of the two programmes Leiden offers in experimental physics. The programme can be tailored to individual needs and interests.

The Biological- and Soft-Matter Physics Master specialisation is one of the two programmes Leiden offers in experimental Physics. The programme can to a high degree be tailored to individual needs and interests.

The quantum nature of matter and light has grown into a broad and fruitful research field for theorists and experimentalists alike. It combines foundational research with toward applications, the most well known of which is the quantum computer.

LION offers a PhD program in which candidates carry out independent research on a specific topic, culminating in a PhD thesis.

In Spring 2023, Simona Demková and Daniel Mândrescu from the Europa Institute secured the new Leiden University Starting Grant, valued at EUR 240,000, for a collaborative project: ‘The EU’s Human-Centred Digital Transformation.’

The ALMA Local Expertise Group (Allegro) is located in the Leiden Observatory (Sterrewacht). Professor Ewine van Dishoeck: ‘The Netherlands has played an important role in establishing ALMA. Thanks to this subsidy, we can now reap the scientific benefits.'

The Sun and all the stars in the night sky reside in the Milky Way galaxy. In the at-rest reference frame of the Galaxy, typical stars travel with velocities of about 100-200 kilometres per second.

On 27 and 28 April, Simona Demková participated as a panelist at the conference 'A

Brian McGarry and Cecily Rose, both affiliated with the Grotius Centre, are members of an adjudicative body established under the auspices of the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA). NSPA is ‘NATO’s lead organization for multinational acquisition, support and sustainment’ for the 32 NATO nations,…

On 14 April 2016, Professor Carsten Stahn, Programme Director of the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies in The Hague, and Ambassador Bernd Borchardt, Founding Director of the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, signed a new partnership agreement on research cooperation and joint…

Vasiliki Kosta presented her research on ‘The EU fundamental right to freedom of the arts and sciences: exploring the limits on the commercialisation of academia' at the Maastricht Centre for European Law on 28 February 2023. The seminar was convened by Dr Annalisa Volpato, and Dr Vigjilenza Abazi acted…

The documentary Einstein’s Light by director Nickolas Barris shows in a dazzling manner what scientific breakthroughs resulted from the special friendship between Albert Einstein and the Leiden physicist Hendrik Antoon Lorentz. The documentary premiered at the Leiden International Film Festival on 2…

For the second year in a row, the Austria Centre Leiden sponsored a festive gathering for the Paula Hyman Mentorship Program at the Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies, which convened in San Francisco, California, USA in December 2023. This meeting allowed Hyman Committee Members…

Leiden University, together with the Open University and Universities of the Netherlands, will take up residence in the Spui building at Grote Marktstraat 48-50/Spui 3 in downtown The Hague from 2025. The partners signed the leases on 7 November.

On 21 June, Ingrid Leijten gave a lecture at the Centre for Human Rights of the Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (CHREN) in Germany. The interdisciplinary centre is linked to a Master’s Programme in Human Rights with students from all over the world.

The Centre for Global Heritage and Development has been successful in applying for a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) on the topic of threatened heritage at ICTO, the platform for innovation and education at Leiden University.

Young people tend to take more risks than children or adults. This trend is related to the reward centre in the brain, which is much more active when they are rewarded, PhD candidate Barbara Braams discovered. Personality, testosterone levels and social context also play a role in risk-taking.

Promotor: M. de Jong, Co-Promotor: Samtleben

The opening and inauguration of the Visitors Centre, and the visitors trail on the site, are an important result of the Tell Balata Archaeological Park project that is jointly being implemented by the Palestinian Department of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage, the Faculty of Archaeology of the University…

The FOM Executive Board has appointed Professor Wim van Saarloos (1955) Director of FOM Foundation, effective 1 November 2009.

The inner city of Leiden has gained three new wall formulas. On Wednesday 22 November at 15:30 in the Klein Auditorium, alderman Robert Strijk will reveal the paintings of Lorentz contraction, Oort constants and electron spin.

Cecily Rose, Assistant Professor at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, has been involved in informing media reports about the recent provisional measures order delivered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Gambia v Myanmar case.

On 28 and 29 August, Dr. Ben Van Rompuy and Dr. Armin Cuyvers gave a two-day training to the Competition Commissioners of the newly established East-African Competition authority.

Yao Yuan, a PhD candidate from the Company Law Department, has recently concluded a research visit at the Lauterpacht Research Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge. This experience has significantly advanced her doctoral work and enhanced her international academic connections.

Dark matter is one of the biggest mysteries of the Universe. Its properties cannot be explained with the known laws of physics and elementary particles.

A pop-up exhibition ‘All the Einsteins’ will open at Rijsmuseum Boerhaave on 29 May 2019. This is the first time that the museum will present its entire collection of handwritten letters and documents by Einstein. The exhibition marks, among others, the publication of the first photo of a black hole…

From the energy transition in Namibia to sustainable jobs for young Nigerians, from African cookbooks to vodcasts on vintage Swahili booklets: during a recent visit by the Executive Board, staff from the African Studies Centre Leiden and the African Library presented their research, teaching and acquisition…

From now on, you can go for a walk through Leiden’s scientific history and at the same time across the historic city center itself. Master students Lotte Koemans and Mandy Meijer have developed an audio tour which takes you past all six wall formulas in the inner city of Leiden.

On Tuesday December 19, Museum Boerhaave, the Lorentz Center and eLaw organize a public lecture on ‘Fairness and Accountability of Sociotechnical Algorithmic Systems’.