Leiden University wishes to attract and retain talented researchers, both male and female. This is not something that happens by itself, which is why we prioritise the theme of diversity.

Leiden University has six top bachelor's programmes according to Keuzigids universiteiten 2025, a consumer guide to university programmes. This puts Leiden in fourth place of the broad-based universities.

Lawyer, economist, politician and women’s rights activist Lizzy van Dorp is the 100th entry in our Top 450. Who or what is your favourite?

The 50th Top 450 entry has now been published. In the run-up to the university’s 450th anniversary, we are compiling our Top 450. What is your favourite?

Leiden University has seven top-rated bachelor's programmes according to Keuzigids universiteiten 2026, a consumer guide to university programmes. This is based on the National Student Survey.

Preventing or delaying disease often requires lifestyle changes, which turns out to be difficult. Valentijn Visch and Sandra van Dijk are researching how to help people change their behaviour.

The year 2023 saw the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, the Wagner Group rebellion and wildfires and floods as all the weather records were smashed. Our most-read stories were about the climate crisis and the elections: here’s the list.

In a recent article published on PLOS, Drs. Briana Pobiner and Ryan McRae of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History discuss the top 13 discoveries in human evolution in 2023.

At the start of the year a lot of journals publish lists of their most cited papers of the previous year. Three papers published by Leiden archaeologists were ranked in the top 10 of the Journal of Archaeological Science: reports.

With an off-the-charts number of downloads, outstanding media coverage, and more than 300 tweets, a small team behind the Scientific Reports article led by a Leiden PhD Igor Djakovic is living every researcher’s dream.

As a researcher, it can be fun and useful to talk to the media about your work. But on what terms should you agree to do an interview or appear on a talk show? And how do you tell an engaging story? The Media Guide for Researchers is here to help. Three colleagues share their top tips.

Didactics

Research, Transferable skills

Didactics

As a lecturer at the Faculty of Science, you can attend different education workshops and trainings. Consult the agenda for upcoming events.

Communication, Personal development

How do you write a good news article? Here are a number of guidelines to help you.

Didactics

For our January session, we are pleased to welcome Cristina Gonzalez from Senscience who will speak about FAIR² data management, with a talk titled "From FAIR to FAIR²: Turning principles into practice for responsible, AI-Ready data".

Study support

Are you an FSW lecturer with a great idea to innovate your teaching? Put your idea into practice with a Grassroots or Grass Shoots grant!

What do we really know about educational quality and its measurement? This was the subject of the first Higher Education Knowledge Café.

Conference, D&I Event

Research

In dermatology, there should be a high level of multidisciplinary collaboration among institutes and specialists, Professor of Translational Dermatology, Robert Rissmann, will say in his inaugural lecture on 8 July. He is building an infrastructure that will put pre-clinical and clinical skin research…

People with relatively high levels of lipids in their blood are less likely to develop allergic conditions such as eczema and asthma. These lipids cause genes that play a key role in allergic reactions to be less active. Researchers from the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) have published an…

The new Comenius Calls have been published. You can use a Comenius grant for innovation projects that help improve higher education. Associate Professor David Ehrhardt from Leiden University College (LUC) in The Hague received a Comenius grant in 2020 and is now implementing his Comenius teaching project…

The end of January arrived together with welcome guests from Saxion University of Applied Sciences. As a part of their two-day-long visit to South Holland, almost 100 Saxion archaeology students visited our Faculty.

Special achievements, grants and a top 10 ranking, a great calendar year for the Faculty of Archaeology! See the overview of 2023 in the hall of fame below.

If universities and research institutions want to tackle unacceptable behaviour in academia, they must shift their focus from dealing with complaints to preventing such behaviour in the first place. This is what the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) has concluded. It has therefore…

Leiden University is seeking bids from developers for housing in Nieuw Rhijngeest-Zuid, the Oegstgeest part of the Leiden Bio Science Park.

Organisation

Three PhD candidates from Leiden University have been awarded a Mosaic 2.0 scholarship for their PhD research. The Dutch Research Council (NWO) Mosaic 2.0 programme is aimed at an underrepresented group of graduates with a migrant background.

In a topping out ceremony on Thursday 30 January, the new sports centre celebrated reaching its highest point and looked ahead to the future. The university will have a spacious and sustainable sports building by the start of 2026.

The University believes it is important that you are happy in your work. This is why we gauge your opinion with the personnel monitor. We use the results to make improvements that enhance job satisfaction.

Leiden University will not enter into any new research partnerships with companies in the fossil fuel industry that are not intensively and demonstrably committed to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. Current projects can, however, be completed.

March 21 is International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. We spoke to Leiden University’s Diversity Officer, Aya Ezawa, and asked her how we can combat racism and discrimination.

Three Leiden students are in the running for the annual ECHO Award. This prize is for students from non-Western backgrounds who are actively engaged in society and promote diversity and inclusion. The three Leiden nominees are Gnimdou Yaovi Assih, Husna Jalal and Sohana Jethnani.

PhD-student Maia has received multiple awards regarding her research on the impact of tobacco on the respiratory health of past Dutch populations.

Korrie Korevaart, a former director and lecturer in Dutch language and culture at Leiden University, has been made a member of the Order of Orange-Nassau. Korevaart, who has retired but is still a guest member of staff at the university, has received the honour for her work at the Faculty of Humanities…

Hoe kan het dat universele mensenrechten wereldwijd niet hetzelfde in de praktijk worden gebracht?