Welcome to the website of the Honours Academy, the place where motivated students work together on their future.

Pushing the limits and trying things out. The academic year of the Honours Academy started on 10 October and all the speakers encouraged students to jump in at the deep end.

The third Honours Academy Star was awarded to Jan Sleutels during the opening ceremony of the academic year of the Honours Academy on Tuesday 6 October. Sleutels is a lecturer in the Honours College Humanities Lab of the Faculty of Humanities and coordinator of the Pre-University College.

The Honours Academy has recently started working with the new visual technology Virtual Reality (VR). 'It is important to look beyond your own borders and to keep on experimenting. It may not work out, but at least you tried.'

As of 19 April 2022, professor Jacobijn Gussekloo has been appointed Dean of the Honours Academy at Leiden University. Gussekloo is professor of Primary Care and director of the master’s programme Vitality and Ageing. Gussekloo succeeds professor Jos Schaeken, who has been Dean since March 2020.

During the honours programme’s start of the year event of September the 15th, Pierre van Eijl and Albert Pilot were invited to talk about their research on talent development in honours programmes and the honours laboratory for 21st century skills. The honours programme with a new name is ‘Tackling…

Nine Honours Class students pitched their plans on 3 March to make the city of Leiden safer, more transparent and more democratic. In this version of 'Dragons Den' headed by Professor Job Cohen the students were tested on their plans and their mettle.

At Leiden University, students with enquiring minds are encouraged to take on an extra challenge alongside their regular studies. Master Honours Classes & Challenges are small-scale, interdisciplinary courses that revolve around tackling a complex issue for society or a partner organisation.

Education for curious and ambitious students who want to get more out of their study!

Leiden University gives inquisitive students the opportunity to follow an extra programme or classes alongside their regular bachelor’s programme. These are called Honours College and Honours Classes.

The new Bachelor Honours Programme Sustainability is a unique joint initiative by the LDE Centre for Sustainability and the Honours Academies of Leiden University, Delft University of Technology and Erasmus University Rotterdam (LDE Alliance).

Bachelor Honours Classes are advanced classes that focus on complex academic and societal topics. The classes are for small groups and use innovative modes of instruction. As Honours Classes are open to students from all faculties, the students exchange knowledge and are challenged to leave the beaten…

The Honours Academy celebrates its tenth anniversary. How did the institute develop over time, and what are aspirations for the future? We speak with the current Dean and a predecessor who was there at the Academy's founding. A conversation about identity, inspiration, and impact ensues. ‘It is about…

Students have various options in the Honours College. They can choose one of the seven faculty tracks to deepen or broaden their knowledge.

The Leiden Leadership Programme is going to innovate. After 12 years, the honours track for master’s students will get a new set-up. We asked two of those involved about the ins and outs of the new LLP. ‘You learn what leadership style suits you and how to make an impact.’

Are you a curious and enthusiastic student, and do you want to do more besides your regular studies? If so, Honours education might be something for you!

Are you a curious and enthusiastic student, and do you want to do more besides your regular studies? If so, Honours education might be something for you!

Are you a curious and enthusiastic student, and do you want to do more besides your regular studies? If so, Honours education might be something for you!

Students from the ‘Public confidence in the criminal justice system’ Bachelor’s Honours Class completed this course with their presentations at the final session on Tuesday 25 May. What is unique about this honours class is the collaboration with The Hague University of Applied Sciences and the Court…

How can KLM remain the most sustainable airline? Master’s students from the Leiden Leadership Programme immerse themselves in practice and advise companies on major issues.

ELS@Leiden is part of nation-wide network of law schools organizing events and pooling resources to be at the service of individual scholars and research groups at law schools in the Netherlands.

PhD Kick-off Event

The Young Academy Leiden (YAL) is a select group of young academics at Leiden University. Founded in early 2019, it serves as a platform to bring young, enthusiastic and driven early career (post-PhD) academics together. YAL members represent a variety of scientific and scholarly…

Blijven ontwikkelen op academisch niveau is onontkoombaar in een snel veranderende arbeidsmarkt. Wij helpen u graag bij het actueel houden van uw kennis en vaardigheden. Voor een leven lang ontwikkelen moet u in Leiden zijn.

Academy Building, Rapenburg 73, 2311 GJ, Leiden

Bachelor, Master

Young Academy Leiden holds up the interests of young academics and this is especially important during the corona crisis.

The Honours Academy organises and facilitates Leiden University’s extracurricular honours education. The Academy is a collaboration of the University’s seven faculties and hence one of its interfaculty education institutes.

Education for professionals. Leiden University offers a wide range of courses to boost your career, learn new skills, or broaden your knowledge.

The Historical Acting Summer Academy, taught by historical actor Jed Wentz, gives students the chance to focus on the basic techniques of acting 1750-1850.

The Honours Academy organises extracurricular education for students at secondary school (vwo), bachelor's and master's level, in order to help them develop academically and societally. There are various ways students can get help during their honours education.

Pre-University Classes are intended for high school students who want to do more than is offered in the regular school curriculum. In the classes, students follow special lecture series and through that are introduced to the world of science.

Through our quarterly newsletter, we keep you informed on all honours programmes at Leiden University. Our newsletter is also available in English. Sign up now via the link below!

The Pre-University Classes are part of the Honours Academy. Here you can find our address and visit details. If there are any questions, you can contact us anytime.

Academy Building, Rapenburg 73, 2311 GJ, Leiden

How would you like to combine your studies at Leiden University with high-level education in the arts? The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts will give you a unique opportunity to develop your academic and artistic talents.

The arts and science: for years, they were seen as opposite extremes. One calls on emotion and the other on reason. The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) proves that nothing could be further from the truth. ACPA is where the knowledge and expertise of Leiden University and the University…

The main task of the Board of Examiners is to determine whether a student meets the conditions set by the Honours Academy's Education Regulations with regard to the knowledge, insight and skills of the relevant honours programme. The Board of Examiners has to determine this in an objective manner.

The subjects of the texts vary from Demosthenes to the delivery of camels in early Islamic Egypt, and their provenances stretch from the Eastern to the Western Desert, and from the Egyptian Nile valley to Qasr Ibrim in northern Nubia.

Impact Challenges are extracurricular courses in which students work towards solving a current problem of an external partner of the Honours Academy. The education is project-based, high-level and multidisciplinary. Through Impact Challenges, students can positively impact a real-world issue.

Are you in a position of talent coach, coordinator, mentor, dean, or teacher and looking for university programmes that provide an extra challenge for the students of your school? The Leiden University Honours Academy provides such a programme, where vwo-students from the final three years of high school…

Who had a say in making decisions about the natural world, when, how and to what end? How were rights to natural resources established? How did communities handle environmental crises? And how did dealing with the environment have an impact on the power relations in communities?

The transformation of the myriad of medieval kingdoms, principalities, local lordships, city-‘states’ and peasant ‘republics’ into ‘modern’ states, claiming some measure of sovereignty, remains one of the core themes of European history, because it gets down to the very root of the (idea on the) Europe…

This book celebrates Maarten Mous, professor of African Linguistics at Leiden University.

At ACPA, the collaboration between Leiden University and the University of the Arts The Hague, artistry and academia meet at the highest level.