Interfaculty themes chosen to strengthen university’s profile
Leiden University is introducing 15 interfaculty themes to improve its visibility and strategic positioning. These themes can now be found on our website.
Our university engages with society by sharing knowledge, addressing societal challenges and fostering new collaborations. As a broad-based university, we aim to strengthen our national and international profile through five domains, each comprising three interfaculty themes.
These themes were established by the Executive Board in May following an extensive university-wide consultation. They were selected to encourage interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration, build on areas where we have strong expertise and align with the societal challenges we aim to address as a university, through both our research and our teaching.
Domain: Humans in the world
Domain: Resilient and learning society
Domain: Technology and society
Domain: Peace, justice, democracy and governance
Domain: Health and life sciences
Input from across the organisation
The process of selecting the themes was conducted with great care and thorough deliberation. In 2024, each faculty held a series of sessions to identify potential domains and themes. This was followed by an online consultation inviting all university staff to indicate how strongly they identified with the proposals. Their input formed the basis for further discussions with internal stakeholders, including scientific directors and heads of research. External partners from the socio-political sphere also provided insights to help refine the themes, and the University Council was consulted too. This process ultimately led to the final list of themes and domains.
What next?
For each theme, we are now shaping their organisation and support. This includes identifying funding opportunities, enhancing our economic and societal impact, expanding national and international collaborations, and strengthening the connections between our research and teaching. We warmly invite our university community to get involved in one of the themes. Keep an eye on our events pages or send an email to: Profilering@BB.Leidenuniv.nl.