A more powerful and prosperous China is exerting unprecedented influence on global affairs and the Chinese government is openly pursuing a proactive diplomacy. Reflecting the importance of these developments, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy is now calling for paper proposals for a special issue.

Assessing Learning in Higher Education addresses what is probably the most time-consuming part of the work of staff in higher education, and something to the complexity of which many of the recent developments in higher education have added. Getting assessment ‘right’– that is, designing and implementing…

Vicencio Oostra, who defended his PhD-thesis at the IBL successfully in June 2013, published new insights into the hormonal regulation of butterfly responses to fluctuating environments.

To discuss this question, chairmen, members, and secretaries of the Research Integrity Committees (Commissies Wetenschappelijke Integriteit, CWI) of almost all Dutch universities gathered at the Leiden Observatory on 21 April. Also present were members of the committees from Leuven, Brussels, Ghent,…

Work officially started on Schilperoortpark at the Leiden Bio Science Park on Wednesday 6 March. Town councillor Paul Dirkse and Vice-Chancellor of the Executive Board of the University Martijn Ridderbos planted the first tree together with Cas Schilperoort, grandson of Professor Rob Schilperoort, the…

The national dietary guidelines in Australia, Brazil, Ireland, Japan, Portugal, and Slovenia benefit nutrition, environment and animal welfare, Leiden environmental scientists write in the journal One Earth. However, the national guidelines of other countries face trade-offs, negatively impacting at…

Paul Behrens (Leiden University) and Matthew Hayek (New York University) have responded to an FAO report on livestock pathways which misrepresented the potential for dietary change to reduce emissions from the food system. The authors have sent a letter to the FAO calling for an urgent retraction on…

Three researchers of Humanities have been awarded with a VIDI research grant. With a VIDI they can spend five years researching the topic they submitte. The grant amounts to a maxium of eight hundred thousand euros.

How do archaeologists test ideas about the evolution of the modern brain? Veni-researcher Geeske Langejans and then Master student Paul Kozowyk (Leiden University) prepared different Prehistoric glue recipes and tested these for strength in modern test machines at the Delft University of Technology.

Global affairs, governance, security, sustainability, public administration, and urban development are topics broadly covered in FGGA's research activities. Regularly, FGGA researchers contribute to The Conversation, an independent platform for academic insights and analysis on current affairs. This…

Lecture

Hugo Koning, an expert in Greek mythology, has won the Lucas Public Prize because he has brought his research to the attention of the general public in so many different ways. This is the first Public Prize awarded by the Leiden University Centre for Arts in Society (LUCAS). Hugo says with a smile:…

Wimar Bolhuis, lecturer in economics, has become a member of the Central Planning Committee (CPC), the independent supervisory committee which audits the work of the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB).

Does the university invest into fossil fuels? ⠀

On Tuesday 22 January 2019, Beryl ter Haar participated in a comparative law lecture featuring labour law cases of the constitutional court of South Africa at the Kutafin State Law University Moscow, Russia. Topics discussed included short term employment contracts, the right to strike and the right…

Mariana Gkliati participated on Saturday 2 June at ‘Europe on Trial'.

On 25 and 26 October 2024, the first biennial symposium Environmental History in the Medieval and Early Modern Low Countries, is scheduled to take place at Leiden University.

The Scotsman Alan Jope is to succeed Paul Polman as CEO of Unilever, a clear sign in the eyes of Arco Timmermans, Professor Public Affairs by special appointment at Leiden University: ‘It seems to me that Unilever is moving with the market’s demands.’

Master of Laws: Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights Outstanding Student Research Theses

After three years of courses, exercises, debating and reflecting, Honours College students received their certificate during a festive ceremony. Even more than with the certificate as such, attendees were pleased with the way Honours enables students to deal with an increasingly complex world.

It all started with demonstrations protesting about the death of George Floyd from police brutality in Minneapolis, but the Black Lives Matter protest is spreading like wildfire across the whole of the US. Every day, thousands of people are taking to the streets. We asked American Studies expert Sara…

Traces of the past remain hidden in rivers, lakes and seas. In his inaugural lecture Martijn Manders will explain why underwater archaeology is important to understanding our history.

Interest organisations are increasingly taking legal action and that’s a good thing for democracy, says PhD candidate Rowie Stolk. ‘It means that the most vulnerable social groups – including children and refugees, who tend to have a weaker political position – are protected.’

To what extent did the Netherlands grow rich from the Transatlantic slave trade? In his dissertation 'Walcherse Ketens', Gerhard de Kok looks at Vlissingen and Middelburg, the most important slave trade cities in the Netherlands during the second half of the 18th century. It turns out that, although…

Six projects from the Faculty of Humanities recently received grants of up to 750,000 euros from the NWO Open Competition. Researchers involved tell how they will spend this money.

We always need to find a new way to tell the story of 3 October, believes Ariadne Schmidt. The professor by special appointment of History of Urban Culture will be working with students to involve more people in the history of that day. ‘I’m too much of a historian to say: we can just let it be a “fun…

Starting 2 July 2022, a new exhibition will be opened to the public at the Old Observatory: More-than-Planet. This exhibit asks the question: how do we imagine our planet?

More than fifty researchers are working together to describe the colonisation of the Americas from the Amerindian perspective. In November they will be meeting for the first time, in Leiden. How is Corinne Hofman, Leiden Professor of Archaeology managing the international megaproject Nexus 1492?

A large delegation composed of 11 delegates from institutes from the Faculty of Science has made an extensive visit to China and enhanced Leiden’s influence in the Chinese academia, industry and local government.

Students, staff and alumni of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences joint forces to interact, debate, pitch, and speed date together at the Connecting Social Sciences science festival on Friday 22 November, 2019. After the opening speeches and panel discussion on science and societal impact,…

Carolien Stolte lectures at the Institute for History within the Faculty of Humanities in Leiden. She intends to use her Veni grant to research the international networks of Indian activists during the period of decolonisation. We spoke to Carolien about her reaction.

Last July saw the start of the new master programme Cosmopolis Advanced, an initiative of the Institute for History at Leiden University in partnership with Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Yogyakarta. The Cosmopolis Advanced programma, led by prof.dr. Jos Gommans and coordinator dr. Lennart Bes, provides…

From 23-25 April 2014, a conference will be held on the topic of Buddhism and Social Justice. This conference confronts the common perception of Buddhism as intrinsically a tradition of peace and justice, and explores the various ways in which historically Buddhist societies of Asia have shaped, transmitted,…

Spirits play a important role in post-colonial and minority literature as a means of processing black pages from history, according to literary scientist Chia-Sui Lee. PhD defence 11 January.

Strengthening the cooperation between Moroccan, other African, and Dutch institutions for higher education. This was the focus of a two-day seminar at NIMAR (Netherlands Institute Morocco) in Rabat in July, during which scholars of the African Studies Centre Leiden interacted with colleagues from NIMAR…

Glen Newey, Professor of Political Philosophy and Ethics at the Institute of Philosophy, suddenly passed away on 30 September 2017. He was a remarkable personality and a unique scholar, who chaired the practical philosophy cluster at Leiden University with great enthusiasm.

From 29 to 30 October 2024, the Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum (KGF) and the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies had the pleasure of hosting an inspiring authors’ workshop in The Hague for the forthcoming Research Handbook, Victims' Rights under Public International Law, edited by Dr Robert Heinsch…

On Tuesday 26 May 2020 professor H.U.E. (Bonno) Thoden van Velzen passed away.

Between 18 and 20 October, CEPS (Centre for European Policy Studies) and the Migration Policy Centre of the European University Institute organized the ASILE training school for PhD researchers. The training focused on the concepts of responsibility attribution and accountability for fundamental rights…

The Hortus botanicus Leiden has one of Europe’s largest collections of living plants from the Asian region. This rich resource is no longer the sole domain of botanists. Multidisciplinary research, teaching and the general public are equally at home in the Hortus. This is the view of Paul Kessler, professor…

Leiden researchers have made an important contribution to the successful ‘Beyond the Nile’ exhibition in the American J. Paul Getty Museum. They also contributed to the exhibition volume that will be presented to Rector Magnificus Carel stolker on 5 September.

The Faculty of Science launched the new Academic Year on 21 September with a special We Are Science talk show. Dean Paul Wouters starred in his role as talk show host and received a wide variety of guests.

For many people, five o’clock signals the end of their working day. But not for the motivated students of the Honours College Law. With some drinks and snacks, they keep going well into the evening. This time, they met for the festive conclusion of a course which brought the history of Dutch crime to…

Environmental scientists Stefano Cucurachi and Paul Behrens and astronomer Jorryt Matthee have received prizes during the New Year's reception of the Faculty of Science on Tuesday 8 January. In addition, Kavli Prize winner Ewine van Dishoeck announced a new award.

A plant-based diet could improve the resilience of our food system. Moving to such a diet in the European Union (EU) and United Kingdom (UK) alone could replace almost all the production losses from Russia and Ukraine. That’s what an international team of researchers conclude in Nature Food. Leiden…

More than 80 percent of the EU’s agricultural subsidies go to the production of animals or animal feed. These products are responsible for 84 percent of the EU’s food-related greenhouse gas emissions. That is revealed in a new study by three Leiden researchers published in Nature Food. ‘If we continue…

These days we do not just have wars and civil wars – more of a global civil war, says Bashir Azizi, who received a PhD in April 2020 for his thesis on global citizenship. The second edition of his thesis was recently published.

Cultural anthropologist Sabine Luning, cultural historian Paul van de Laar and professor of architecture and urban development history Carola Hein say that the things that are not shown in images are also worth studying.

What does academic freedom mean? And how do we give shape to it in Leiden? The Academic Freedom Core Team considered these questions and presented its final report on 17 June.

Early November, a delegation of the Faculty of Science visited two Indonesian universities to shape the collaboration in bioscience. The Faculty also opened a new Indonesian office in Yogyakarta.