University ceremony

This critical edition covers the first two parts of De secundis intentionibus by Hervaeus Natalis (14th century).

On 7 February 2025 Leiden University celebrated its 450th anniversary.

The theme of our 450th anniversary, and of this Dies Natalis, is Ahead of the Times. We have, after all, been directing our gaze to the future for centuries now.

Leiden University celebrated its 445th foundation day on 7 February 2020.

On 8 February 2023 Leiden Unversity celebrates its 448th foundation day.

On 8 February 2024 Leiden University celebrated its 449th anniversary.

On 8 February 2022 Leiden University celebrated its 447th anniversary.

Leiden University celebrated its 442nd foundation day on 8 February 2017.

Leiden University celebrated its 443th foundation day on 8 February 2018.

On 8 February 2021 Leiden University celebrated its 446th anniversary.

Leiden University celebrated its 444th foundation day on 8 February 2019.

Eine Archäobotanische untersuchung zu Umwelt und Landwirtschaft der Ältesten Bankkeramik.

Pieterskerk and Leiden University are closely connected. The University was founded in Pieterskerk and to this day we celebrate that at the University’s annual Dies Natalis. Much has to be done to get the church ready for this special day. A photo series behind the scenes.

This dissertation provides a detailed description of the interaction between verb semantics and the two grammatical voice categories in the Vedic Sanskrit of the Rigveda.

Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia is the annual journal of the Faculty of Archaeology (formerly the Institute of Prehistory), Leiden University.

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…

On February 8 the 443rd dies natalis will take place in the Pieterskerk in Leiden.

‘Collaboration is increasingly important,’ Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker said at the 445th Dies Natalis of Leiden University on 7 February. But, as he heard from a number of Leiden researchers, this is contingent upon a firm disciplinary basis. A novelty of this year’s celebration was a joint dies…

This doctoral thesis focuses on Paisiello's partimenti and how to approach their realization and performance.

On 8 February, GTGC's Chair prof.dr. Jan Aart Scholte, gave a speech during the high-level dinner of the university's 449th Dies Natalis. The speech was themed around 'including the other' in research and focussed on the value of inviting and engaging with perspectives different than your own.

Universities cannot survive in this highly competitive world without collaboration. And the ultimate aim is to make the world a safer and more sustainable place. This was Rector Carel Stolker’s message during the 441st Dies Natalis.

Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrix of the Netherlands will attend the Dies Natalis ceremony at Leiden's Pieterskerk on Friday 7 February to celebrate our 450th anniversary.

How has evolution shaped our curiosity? And how does that curiosity ensure that we now have the technological ability to discover whether we are alone in the universe? This was all covered during the celebration of Leiden University’s 449th Dies Natalis.

Leiden University College The Hague turns 7 today (29 September 2017). Lieke Schreel, educational director of LUC has been with the college from the start. She shares her thoughts on another year and birthday of the College.

Workshops, tours, talks, music, an AI photobooth, interviews, a special poem and the launch of the LUF Children’s Fund. Alumni celebrated their alma mater’s 450th birthday in style on Saturday at the massively oversubscribed Dies Natalis Festival.

This dissertation deals with Hegel’s theory of the sublime (das Erhabene). I focus specifically on die heilige Poesie (sacred poetry), a form of art that he identifies with the Judaic Psalms and which I claim to be the core of Hegel’s approach to sublimity. I claim that Hegel’s apparent lack of interest…

How did a circle of Soviet artists and writers virtually unknown until perestroika turn into Russia’s most influential contemporary art movement? This book reconstructs the cultural history and canonization of a group of painters and poets known as the Moscow conceptualists, who paradoxically did not…

The importance of science communication and cross-boundary collaboration, and the ‘mantra’ of diminishing social cohesion in society: these all came up at Leiden University’s 448th Dies Natalis. A panel discussion including Leiden’s mayor Lenferink, music and two honorary doctorates completed the special…

‘Collaboration is increasingly important,’ Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker said at the 445th Dies Natalis of Leiden University on 7 February. But, as he heard from a number of Leiden researchers, this is contingent upon a firm disciplinary basis. A novelty of this year’s celebration was a joint dies…

An extra-long cortège, three honorary doctorates, a quiz about 450 years of university history, a Dies Natalis rap and a call to defend academic freedom: these all featured in Leiden University’s 450th Dies Natalis celebration and the official start of its jubilee year.

On September 29th LUC celebrated its 6th birthday. Lieke Schreel, the Educational Director of LUC has been involved with the programme from the start. She reflects on the growth and the development of LUC in those six years.

No procession of professors, just a handful of people in the church and snowdrifts outside Leiden’s Pieterskerk: 8 February 2021 was no ordinary Dies Natalis. Carel Stolker transferred the rectorate to Hester Bijl, and Annetje Ottow became the new President of the Executive Board. With an honorary doctorate…

Historian Frank Dikötter will receive an honorary doctorate from Leiden University for his work on the history of the Chinese Republican period and the People's Republic of China under Mao. He will be awarded the honorary degree during the university's Dies Natalis celebrations on 8 February 2017.

My research addresses the function of the much-debated particle -nā in Biblical Hebrew, often translated with “please”, from the point of view of the most important ancient Bible translations (Greek, Syriac, Latin). It combines textual criticism, translation technique, discourse pragmatics, and the…

Every year around 8 February, Leiden University, the oldest university in the Netherlands, is celebrating its birthday. Why does the King still receive a telegram on the day of the Dies Natalis? 4 questions on the origins of Leiden University and its traditions for celebrating its foundation day.

University ceremony

From ransomware to Citrix traffic jams: over the past few months Dutch organisations were regularly brought to a standstill by serious cyber attacks. We can only face these threats by standing as one, and universities and government should take the lead. These are the words of Leiden professors Bibi…

The recent rise in global migration movements and the simultaneous attempts to prevent migrations to the Global North in general and Europe in particular have produced numerous images and narratives that try to record and convey these events and their actors.

Each year a staggering 18 billion chickens, turkeys, pigs, sheep, goats, and cows either die or are killed without making it onto someone's plate. Environmental scientists Juliane Klaura, Laura Scherer, and Gerard Breeman were the first to calculate this number on a global scale. 'Reducing these numbers…

Portraits of six Leiden professors for whom 8 February 2016 was the first time that they took part in the procession of Leiden professors at the Dies Natalis.

At the Dies Natalis Willem Otterspeer, Professor Emeritus of University History, presented the fourth and final volume of Groepsportret met Dame, his series on the history of Leiden University. De 'Strategie van de Aanpassing' covers the period 1876-1975. Otterspeer talked about his book in a podcast…

University ceremony

On 8 February 2016, Dr Jennifer Tour Chayes, Director of Microsoft Research in Boston and New York, will be presented with a Leiden honorary doctorate by Frank den Hollander, Professor of Probability Theory and Statistical Physics.

American anthropologist Rosemary Joyce will be awarded an honorary doctorate from Leiden University on its Dies Natalis on 8 February. Joyce has delivered important new insights into the ancient Mayan cultures of Central America.

The celebration of Leiden's Dies Natalis on Monday 9 February in the Pieterskerk was extra special this year and was attended by many prominent guests. This was the kick-off of the special 88th Lustrum (five-year) celebrations in 2015.