Michel Orrit was awarded the Physica prize 2016 for his groundbreaking work on single molecule spectroscopy.

The Sustainable Business Battle was launched less than a year ago, but it has already won several prizes. Last week, the organisers received the Green Trophy and now they can also add the Van Bergen Prize to their awards.

It is partly thanks to Leiden professor Michel Orrit that we are today able to study individual molecules. He just missed winning a Nobel Prize, but is today the recipient of another important scientific award: NWO’s prestigious Spinoza Prize.

Not one, but two initiatives won this year's Van Bergen prize. The prize was awarded during the university's Diversity symposium on 22 January. One of the winners is OpenUp, an interactive symposium on coping with stress and fear. Students are invited to tell their stories. The Hague Campus' study advisers…

The World Data Visualization Prize for 2019 was awarded to Dimiter Toshkov, Associate Professor at the Institute of Public Administration, for his work on the theme of small states and good governance. The prize is a good way to raise awareness about the value of good data visualization.

Pianist and docARTES researcher Bobby Mitchell has been awarded the audience prize at the finale of the 5th Young Pianists Festival in Amsterdam, last November. The great majority of the audience voted for him at the finale, of which the other two candidates were Sofia Vasjeroek and Rosalia Gómes La…

The European Physical Society has awarded the prestigieus Edison Volta Prize to Leiden physicist Michel Orrit. The prize is handed out every two years to an individual or a group of at most three scientists as an acknowledgment of an outstanding achievement in physics research.

Milan Allan has received the Bryan R. Coles Prize at the International Conference on Strongly Correlated Electron Systems (SCES) in Prague.

The Modderman Prize is awarded once every two years to advance research in the field of criminal law science.

Pieter Slaman, Assistant Professor at the Institute of History and the University’s university historian, has won the 2024 LUS Teaching Prize.

In 2023, many of our students and staff won great prizes and secured important research grants.

Two Leiden physicists took part in the Lindau conference in Germany from 26 June to 1 July. They met Nobel prize winners from their field.

Eveline Crone, professor of neurocognitive developmental psychology at Leiden University, has been awarded the Dr Hendrik Muller Prize for Behavioural and Social Sciences by KNAW.

Assistant Professor Mike Schmidli has won the 2025 Faculty Teaching Prize. The Education Committee praised his commitment not only to teaching students well, but also to helping them develop into well-rounded individuals.

Marie Depuydt has won the Van Wersch Springboard Prize. She was awarded the prize on 28 November during the annual Fall symposium. There were seven nominees in total, but the selection committee unanimously chose Depuydt as the winner.

Els de Busser (Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs), Ayo Adedokun (LUC The Hague) and David Fontijn (Faculty of Archaeology) have been nominated for the LUS Teaching Prize 2020-2021.

The Edisen Foundation has won the 2016 Mr. K.J. Cath prize. This student organisation set up by two Leiden students gives lectures in care homes.

Lotte Fikkers, university lecturer in English literature, received the Faculty Teaching Prize at the opening of the faculty year. ‘She is clearly very passionate about her profession.’

Baleseng Maeneche (University of the Western Cape) has won the Africa Thesis Award 2024 with a master's thesis on media representation of male perpetrators of violence against women and children in South Africa. Her research challenges dominant narratives and emphasises the need for fair media representation…

Elsemieke Daalder has won the prestigious ‘Premio della Corte costituzionale italiana’, part of the ‘Premio Boulvert’ awards, for her dissertation ‘De rechtspraakverzamelingen van Julius Paulus’, for which she was awarded her doctorate cum laude on 23 October 2018 in Leiden.

Christopher Green has won the Teaching Prize 2024. The assistant professor of Korea Studies was presented with the prize during the opening of the faculty year in the Hortus.

Bringing Dutch and international students together. One way to do that is by playing Archery Attack, archaeology student Timothy Stikkelorum suggested. On 13 November, he and his team, a committee from the Terra study association, won the Van Bergen Prize with their idea.

Matthias Flór receives the KHMW Graduation Prize in Theoretical Physics for his master's thesis. His research on exotic superconductors at Leiden University and TU Delft struck a chord with the jury. The jury unanimously chose to award Flór noting that ‘he demonstrated impressive technical abilities…

Professor Nira Wickramasinghe has won the American Historical Association John F. Richards Prize in South Asian History for her book Slave in a Palanquin. Colonial Servitude and Resistance in Sri Lanka' (Columbia University Press: New York 2020).

The Jan Brouwer thesis award for social sciences 2015 was awarded last April 14th to Master graduate in Public Administration Raffael Hanschmann for his thesis “The impact of the economic crisis on EU environmental policy making. Insights from discourse network analysis”.

The jury of the Africa Thesis Award is delighted to announce that the 2025 prize has been awarded to Yonwaba Matshobotiyana of the University of the Free State, South Africa, with a thesis on Black women's poetry in South Africa.

Dr. Mei Wang, chair of ‘Leiden University - European Center for Chinese Medicine and natural compounds’ has been awarded the ‘Qihuang prize’. The prize is awarded by the Chinese Medicine Society in recognition of her significant contribution to Chinese medicine outside China and to further stimulate…

Markus Davidsen, assistant professor of Religious Studies, is the winner of the 2021 Impact Prize. He is receiving the prize of 1,000 euros for the material he has developed for religious education in secondary schools.

What influence do children’s upbringing and education have on their world view? This is the question Professor Judi Mesman is trying to answer. For her research and public outreach activities, she has just been awarded the prestigious Stevin Prize, the highest award in the Netherlands for a researcher…

Physicist Marileen Dogterom is one of the winners of the Spinoza Prize 2018. She is a professor at TU Delft, where she has her lab, and is also affiliated to Leiden University as a Medical Delta Professor. She receives the prize for her research on the skeleton of the cell.

Astronomer Jos de Boer has received the Chesneau Prize in Nice for his research into so-called protoplanetary disks. The prize is awarded to the best astronomical dissertation in the field of high angular resolution. 'I consider it a good opportunity to talk about my research.'

Leiden PhD student Peter Koymans has been declared ‘best mathematics PhD student’ by the Royal Dutch Mathematical Society (KWG). He received the prize at the Dutch Mathematical Congress (NMC) on 24 and 25 April. With his talk about his research into the Cohen-Lenstra conjecture, Koymans left eleven…

The 2015 Dissertation Prize of the Global Neutrino Network has been awarded to Tri Astraatmadja, who was part of the Leiden/Nikhef ANTARES group during his PhD research. Astraatmadja receives the award for his thesis 'Starlight between the waves: In search of TeV photon emission from Gamma-Ray Bursts…

Pre-Islamic Arabia was barren, barbaric, and isolated. At least, that's what many Arabic writers and historics argued. Ahmad Al-Jallad debunks this myth. For this, he received the Gratama Science Prize during the opening of the academic year.

The Heritage Quest archaeology project has been nominated for the Heritage Volunteer Prize. In the project volunteers are looking for archaeological remains such as burial mounds, Celtic fields and cart tracks. The project leaders are Leiden University, Landscape Heritage Utrecht and Gelderland Heritage.…

Thijs Porck, teacher at English Language and Culture, has won the faculty teaching prize. He was lauded for his enthousiasm, his creative ways of teaching, and his commitment to his students.

Wout Broekema is shortlisted for the Els Witte Prize 2019, an award for best Doctoral dissertation in political science. The prize is instated by the Nederlandse Kring voor de wetenschap der Politiek (NKWP).

Dr. Yannick van den Brink’s PhD thesis, titled ‘Pre-trial detention in the Dutch juvenile justice system’, has been awarded the FJR Prize 2018.

The winner of this year’s Jaap Doek Children’s Rights Thesis Award wants to raise more awareness for children who have a parent in detention: ‘It’s time we stop looking the other way and actually think about the impact.’

One of the key objectives of The Europe Hub is to bring together scholars and students with a joint interest in the European Union. To this end, The Europe Hub regularly organises events such as conferences, roundtables, lectures and book launches.

We investigate the physics and design of mechanical metamaterial, intricately sculpted materials with properties set by their architecture.

The Max van der Stoel Human Rights Award is presented every two years on 10 December (Human Rights Day) in recognition of outstanding academic works in the field of international human rights.

Is it acceptable for an algorithm to make mistakes? Quinten Meertens investigated this at Leiden University and the UvA and has been nominated with his research for the prestigious Christiaan Huygens Science Prize. The winner will be announced on 11 October. In April, Meertens received his doctorate…

The Humanities Faculty Teaching Award has been won by Olja Karmanova. The Russian lecturer was presented with the award during the opening of the faculty year.

Anthe Janssen graduated ‘summa cum laude’ for the master’s programme Chemistry.He used NMR methods to gain insight in the syntheses and behavior of bio sugars. With this knowledge future therapeutics and research tools in hemical and medicinal biology can be developed. Anthe was awarded € 2.500.

Nominated as best Master thesis by the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA), Robin Neumann has received the second prize in the Leiden University best thesis competition.

The winner of the Africa Thesis Award 2022 is Robert Okello for his thesis on rural women’s legal empowerment through digital technology in Northern Uganda. Robert did his Master in Development Studies at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Political scientist Cynthia van Vonno’s (Leiden University) 2016 dissertation has been shortlisted for the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Jean Blondel PhD Prize. Her study of party group unity in parliamentary voting was chosen from an exceptionally high number of nominations.

On December 6th, 2024, Rector Hester Bijl welcomed participants at the Leiden Jewish Studies Association’s First Annual Conference “Jews at Home: From Creation to Corona” and also presented two Leiden University students with the inaugural Leiden Jewish Studies Association “Best Thesis in Jewish Studies”…

Yusen Yu wins the prestigious Graduate Student Prize of the Middle East Medievalists (MEM) with his article