What impact does a mid-season wildfire have on grassland invertebrates?

That corn was highly important in the Maya culture is something that Genner Llanes Ortiz, himself a Maya from the Mexican province of Yucatan, has always known, right from his childhood. But just how important the role of corn is in the collective memory of his people, is one of the subjects of his…

The Dutch Association for the Study of Religion (NGG) has decided to award the Cornelis Tiele MA Thesis Award 2018 to LUCSoR alumnus Bas van Rijn for his thesis “The Mind Behind the Cards: Searching for the Source of Tarot Divination’s Popularity through a Cognitive Analysis” (supervised by dr. Markus…

Promotor: Robert Tijdeman, Co-promotor: Cornelis Kraaikamp

Examining the sustainability aspects of biotechnology, especially those related to the production of ethanol from biomass.

Teaching Legal History

On 18 May 2011, Dr. Ben Knapen, Minister for European Affairs and International Cooperation, delivered the annual Van Vollenhoven Lecture on “Rule of Law and Development”.

In this lecture professor Harding considered the implications of Asia's 21st-century rise for its legal systems and our approaches to studying them in the new situation we confront in the early 21st century.

Timely, adequate and optimal treatment of infectious diseases is essential for the survival of patients with bacterial infections (Surviving Sepsis campaign).

This book presents the results of a research about the Islamic courts of Cianjur in West Java, and Bulukumba in South Sulawesi and the role they play in local divorce practices.

Artful Mathematics: The Heritage of M. C. Escher

On Thursday 20 May 2021, Tania Li delivered the annual Van Vollenhoven Lecture.

Political Islam is not new to the Middle East, but the appearance of ISIS has stretched the phenomenon to the extreme.

Was the progressive colonial civil servant the precursor of the postcolonial development-aid worker?

Where did the new generation of antislavery activists get their inspiration to organize in large-scale pressure groups?

How do plants lure microscopically small 'support teams' into their roots for protection against diseases? And what functions are activated in the microbes and the plants?

The Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance, and Development and the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies organised the Van Vollenhoven Lecture 2013.

Although official law generally conceives of personal injury victims as individual rights holders, the actual experience of physical injury and its consequences is relational. Indeed, many researchers in the global North as well as the global South have contended that the very concept of the Self should…

Labour is back as a significant social and political force in Indonesia, as was shown in the recent 1 May trade union demonstrations in Jakarta. Over the past years major changes have taken place in Indonesian labour law, leading to new forms of judicial and political resolution of labour disputes.

The Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) is an internationally oriented institute for research and education in biology. We are part of the Faculty of Science at Leiden University.

SEAtrans: an interdisciplinary research project that aims at studying the dynamics and processes of transitions in society-nature interactions in Southeast Asian societies.

They sprayed with corn starch and made detailed drawings of the genitalia of spiders. In different ways students studied spiders in the dense tropical rainforest of Borneo. With their work they solved a spider mystery and published about this in Biodiversity Data Journal in April.

Leiden University regularly confers honorary doctorates, and presents awards and prizes.

On Thursday 9 May, Prof. Tony Platt delivered the annual Van Vollenhoven Lecture entitled ‘Rethinking Crime & Punishment’

On Thursday 14 October, Dr Martine van Ittersum gave the first lecture of the Van Vollenhoven Institute’s year-long workshop 'Reconsidering the Socio-Legal Gaze'. Attended by over 40 people, her lecture, entitled 'Van Vollenhoven and Grotius: Soulmates in Empire' examined Grotius’ influence on Cornelis…

Leiden archaeologists investigate how people in the past impacted their environment. Together with scientists, environmental scientists, and humanities experts, they use this information to draw conclusions about the present – and show what we can learn from it for the future.

Light reflects from a mirror, but where exactly does this reflection happen? Well, it depends, Martin van Exter and Corné Koks discovered. Their precise calculations, published in Optics Express, are important for designing optical cavities for quantum communication.

Is the legitimacy of law and governance of multilevel jurisdictions diminishing?” “What is the significance of (diminishing) legitimacy for the effectiveness of law?” These kinds of questions about the legitimacy of the supranational formation of law, its application, and the policy and governance based…

Curiosities from the anatomical theatre, swords from the fencing school and 17th-century portraits of the University's founders. The new University Room in Museum De Lakenhal portrays the turbulent first hundred years of Leiden University.

A Vici grant and a Science-GROOT: scientists from the Institute of Biology Leiden have been awarded prestigious grants from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). From investigating bacteria without cell walls to harnessing plants with the help of microorganisms.

Two scientific papers in Science deliver new pieces of the puzzle for the reasons of bee decline. Professor Koos Biesmeijer comment on this research in articles in the Dutch newspapers Volkskrant and NRC.

Great news! From Whit Monday at noon, the oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands will be open for visitors again. After twelve weeks of closure, visitors will be able to come and enjoy everything that grows and blossoms in the heart of Leiden's city center. In order to offer all visitors and staff…

Dr Sri Margana succeeded Bambang Purwanto last September as professor in the Faculty of the Humanities. Margana is a specialist in the early modern history of Indonesia. The appointment will run for five years.

Various companies in the plant biotech industry will test a recent Leiden discovery in their crops. The ‘Pol Theta’ technology is developed in Leiden and makes it possible to reduce undesired side effects during genome engineering of plants.

On the 442nd anniversary of the foundation of Leiden University, and at the start of the Leiden Asia Year, lawyer Jan Michiel Otto, an expert in the field of law in developing countries, delivered the first Dies lecture. He compared demagogues in Asia who call upon Muslims to turn against their governments…