We consider a system of NN particles evolving according to the gradient flow of their Coulomb or Riesz interaction, or a similar conservative flow, and possible added random diffusion. By Riesz interaction, we mean inverse power ss of the distance with ss between d−2d−2 and dd where dd denotes the dimension. We present a convergence result as NN tends to infinity to the expected limiting mean field evolution equation. We also discuss the derivation of Vlasov-Poisson from newtonian dynamics in the monokinetic case, as well as related results for Ginzburg-Landau vortex dynamics.