In addition to his Film and Literature Studies, Bob van Oosterhout is a bassoonist with several orchestras. He is going to Milan with the student choir and orchestra ‘Collegium Musicum’.

Nowadays they can cause the fall of ministers, but once upon a time receipts were a new phenomenon. Associate Professor Robert Stein is to receive a grant from NIAS to map their origins.

A permanent job or start your own company? After her studies in English Language and Culture and History, Anna Visser (28) was faced with this exact choice and chose the latter. She started working as a freelance translator. How did this go and how did her studies benefit her?

Leiden Professor Richard Griffiths received the Outstanding Educator Award for Innovation during the annual Coursera Partner Conference on 22 March. The conference was hosted by Leiden University in the World Forum in The Hague and was attended by 500 participants from more than a hundred leading universities.…

Are you passionate about building a better world? Do you want to connect with the young world leaders of today and tomorrow? If so, apply for the One Young World Summit in The Hague, to be held from 17 to 20 October 2018! Leiden University is sponsoring two tickets. Mayor of The Hague, Pauline Krikke,…

Tim Koopmans is one of the great minds in the history of Dutch and European legal scholarship. He taught law as a professor in Leiden and other universities, among which Ghent, Cambridge, Utrecht. He practiced it as a judge in the European Court of Justice and Advocate-General in the Dutch Supreme Court,…

This project studies travel writing about the Dutch East Indies written between 1800 and the end of the Second World War. By analyzing both Dutch travel texts and Indigenous travel texts in Javanese and Malay, it presents a new, double-voiced perspective on (the historiography of) the Dutch colonial…

The Leiden University Medical Anthropology Network (LUMAN) brings medical anthropologists together with the aim of fostering interfaculty collaborations and creating common ground for working interdisciplinary on health-related themes in Leiden and beyond.

Studying International Relations and Organisations (IRO) you will address transboundary issues from a social sciences point of view. It is an international 3-year programme with a strong focus on current global affairs.

Lecture

Nearly all documents from the 16th and 17th centuries were written by more than one person but attributed to only one author. Professor Nadine Akkerman wants to rectify this oversight in her research on scribes.

Friday 5 July 2019 was the graduation of the Advanced Master International Relations and Diplomacy (MIRD). ´If the MIRD is like a good wine, this has been a vintage year'.

Brandon Zicha (Leiden University College The Hague) had always been critical of the teaching system at universities. But it was only when he passed the Senior Teaching Qualification at the end of last year that he was able to explain exactly what was wrong with it.

The occupation of the Afghan capital Kabul by the radical Taliban movement on 15 August 2021 received enormous international attention, not least because of the crisis that soon enveloped Kabul airport as desperate Afghans sought to flee the country on evacuation flights mounted by the United States…

Will British universities become isolated after Brexit? The University of Oxford has set up a new programme for excellent young researchers to try to prevent that happening. Two Leiden PhD candidates are taking part. 'We have lost a lot of the citizens of Europe.'

Pensions not tailored to the self-employed, working mothers with stagnant salaries and people unable to find work due to incapacity. Pim Koopmans was recently awarded a PhD from Leiden University for his research on these issues and the corresponding financial risks.

'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…

Lights out, spotlight on, the LU talks begin. In the small Imperium Theatre, next to the Leidse Schouwburg, students take turns walking up to the round blue carpet. There they have five minutes to present their first LU talk to lecturers, fellow students, and the camera. ‘Extremely useful and instructive’…

On Friday 29 August 2025, 370 students received their Bachelor's degree in International Studies. The diplomas were awarded in the historic setting of the Pieterskerk in Leiden. Family members, friends, and staff gathered to celebrate this joyous occasion with the graduates in a packed Pieterskerk.

“United Nations peacekeeping is a proven investment in global peace, security, and prosperity. Together, let us pledge to do all we can to enable that mission to succeed”. – Secretary-General António Guterres

Netherlands and China can learn from each other to handle household and livestock wastewater more sensibly. In the FOREWARD project, scientists from Leiden, Wageningen, and China are working together with local partners on feasible solutions that advance the environment, health, and economy.

Thinking up solutions for global issues such as environmental pollution and poverty. This is what young people from all over the world will be doing at the One Young World summit from 17 to 20 October in The Hague. Follow Leiden students Jennifer Pfister and Thomas Gevers who will be reporting on their…

Last week, the first seven professionals successfully completed the new Leiden Legal Technologies Programme (LLTP). They received their certificates during a festive ceremony. Smiling faces all around for founder Jaap van den Herik, Programme Director Nikol Hopman, and The Hague alderman Saskia Bruines.…

From interview training and competence tests to internships and contact with alumni. At Leiden University there are many ways for our students to prepare for the job market, but the support available is often too fragmented and hard to find. How can we best prepare our students for a job market that…

Audrey Heijns explored the mindset of alumnus Henri Borel. From 1894 to 1916 he was an interpreter of Chinese and later a government officer for Chinese affairs in the Dutch East Indies. Borel's way of 'translating' Chinese was both unique and inimitable. PhD defence on 28 June.

Marije Groos was a PhD researcher at the LUCAS. She completed her thesis on socio-political engagement in Dutch literary periodicals of the fifties. Her promoters are Yra van Dijk, professor of Modern Dutch Literature, and Ton Anbeek, emeritus professor of Modern Dutch Literature.

How can I align science, society and myself to address today’s major challenges? That’s what students of the Honours College track ‘Science, Society and Self’ aim to find out. How do their classes at honours differ from their regular education?

Diplomatica addresses the broad range of work being done across the social sciences and the humanities that takes diplomacy as its focus of investigation. The journal explores and investigates diplomacy as an extension of social interests, forces, and environments.

The Hague Journal of Diplomacy is calling for research papers. The deadline for submission is the first of June 2018. This will be used for a book and special issue of the The Hague Journal of Diplomacy

It was long thought that the early development of Japanese children's books served mainly as a propaganda tool of the state: the literature was supposed to have been written to shape children into perfect citizens. PhD student Aafke van Ewijk nuances this image. Children's book writers wanted to have…

Last week, the sad news reached us that Dr Jan Schmidt passed away on 11 August 2025. We wish his partner, friends and family strength and comfort as they cope with this loss. Jan Schmidt will be remembered as one of the most prolific and learned scholars in the field of Ottoman codicology and histo…

Exam, paper, exam, paper. A familiar, though sometimes little unexciting, routine for students. That is why Film and Literary students Sietske de Haan and Wouter Dijkman decided to write a blog post for the course Interculturality. Their impressive achievement was rewarded with a publication on science…

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;…

The archaeologists have been working from home three weeks now. Remotely, through Teams, we meet up with Miguel John Versluys’ research team, to see how they continue working in times of corona.

Sam de Schutter won the Brill/Diplomatica Mattingly Prize 2019 for his article “A Global Approach to Local Problems? How to Write a Longer, Deeper, and Wider History of the International Year of Disabled Persons in Kenya”. We asked him some questions about the research he is doing that has led to this…

Lots of employees celebrated special successes in 2023. Here’s a list of all those scholarships, awards and honours.

On 12 September the students of the European Law Master gathered in the Lorentzzaal for the festive opening of their programme.

New ministers, new state secretaries and new members of parliament. Around the time of the elections, we often talk about the new faces, but there are also many politicians who leave during this period, sometimes out of necessity. How do you say goodbye to a political career? Henk te Velde, professor…

Literature – and films and social media too – helps us understand ourselves and society. That makes literary studies an eternally modern discipline, especially if you dare to combine it with other disciplines, says Nidesh Lawtoo.

Anti-immigration protests over asylum seekers receive extensive attention, but PhD candidate Clare Fenwick says it’s a vocal minority taking to the streets. 'The silent majority might also have migration concerns, like job losses due to labour migration, but these views seem to remain outside public…

You’re about to start your minor at Leiden University. Make sure you are well prepared and get your studies off to a good start.

You’re about to start your minor at Leiden University. Make sure you are well prepared and get your studies off to a good start.

Debates about the ‘end’ of the Roman era, how, when, and even if it ended, are still very much alive and raging. However, what happened after the (long) late antique period is a lesser-known and lesser-studied subject. The post-Roman past needs, however, as much energetic investigation and discussion.…

In October, LUCIS and NIMAR will host a two-day workshop in honor of the 50th anniversary of Islam Observed, Clifford Geertz' comparative study of Islam in Morocco and Indonesia. Send in your proposal and get a chance to share your work in Rabat this fall.

Rosalien van der Poel has worked in every nook and cranny of the university over the past thirty years. Now she is stepping down as institute manager of the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) to enjoy her retirement. Last year, we spoke with Rosalien about her career.

Are you interested in ancient Egypt, the rich cultural heritage of Mesopotamia or bliblical Hebrew and Aramaic? Students of all faculties can follow electives of Ancient Near Eastern Studies without prior knowledge or special entry requirements. Archaeology student Annely Arends talks about her expe…

Op 9 juni jl. vond in de rechtenfaculteitskamer van het Leidse Academiegebouw een workshop plaats over tradities en aanpalende concepten, zoals politieke cultuur, spelregels en constitutionele conventies. Tijdens de bijeenkomst presenteerden en bediscussieerden juristen, historici, politicologen en…

We continue to work from home as much as possible. How are the staff members of the Institute for History doing? Mike Schmidli shares his experience below.

Ten years, it is so hard to believe that it is already ten years ago that Leiden University College was officially opened on a sunny Wednesday in 2010 in The Hague. A day of achievement, joy, and dreams for the future. It seems so much shorter and yet so much has been developed and built, so many happy…