The Executive Board is visiting the university’s institutes to find out what is going on. On 8 July 2025, it was the turn of the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML), one of the fastest-growing institutes at Leiden University. ‘Our main aim is to preserve our planet for future generations.’

On 15 November in Brussels, the Brussels Privacy Hub and the Future of Privacy Forum held the 6th edition of the 'Brussels Privacy Symposium'. The topic of this year was 'Vulnerable People, Marginalisation and Data Protection'.

The 8th edition of the Brussels Privacy Symposium, co-organised in Brussels by the Future of Privacy Forum and the Brussels Privacy Hub on 7 October 2024, was a great success. More than 160 people from all over Europe and the world attended the event.

Organisation

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.

On January 17th 2023, Caterina Ghini, Ambassador of Greece to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, visited the Faculty of Archaeology. Her Excellency reached out to Leiden University with the purpose to collaborate and engage with us.

Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics Wim van Saarloos received an honorary doctorate from the University of Twente last Friday. In addition to his work at Leiden University, Van Saarloos was president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) until June 2020 and he led The Dutch…

Organisation

In a newly published article in East Asia Forum (Australian National University), Salvador Santino Regilme, reflects on the global significance of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest and trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.

Marokko zegt het contact met de Duitse regering op. Volgens Marokkaanse media is ministeries en andere overheidsinstanties per brief gevraagd direct de samenwerking op te schorten met de Duitse ambassade in Marokko.

Sri Lanka is experiencing unprecedented economic and political crises. Months of protests came to a head earlier this month when protesters occupied President Rajapaksa's palace.

Dutch Central Bank President Klaas Knot wants to wind down the European Central Bank’s crisis bond-buying programme this year because the economic outlook is looking increasingly positive.

Ad IJzerman, Emeritus Professor of Pharmacochemistry, was made a Knight of the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands on 26 April. He was presented with the royal honour by Mayor Elbert Roest in the town hall in Bloemendaal.

On 23 February 2023, Leiden University organised an alumni event in Brussels, which was attended by around a hundred people. Joris Larik, representing Leiden University College (LUC) The Hague and the Europa Institute, spoke on the expert panel on interdisciplinary perspectives on ‘Europe and the new…

Education

Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics Jacqueline Meulman received an honorary membership during the annual meeting of the Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research (VVSOR). This makes her the eleventh honorary member of the society.

The International Astronautical Congress (IAC) that took place last week in Paris was extremely successful for IIASL.

Research

So much has happened this year! 2023 was an eventful year in which several wars raged about which our experts could offer interpretation. It was also the year in which the government made apologies for the slavery past. Leiden humanities scholars were at the forefront of this with their research on…

High-quality education, research involving multiple faculties, collaboration between universities and central government funding to make all this possible: these were the topics covered in a working visit of the Standing Committee for Education, Culture and Science (OCW) to the Association of Universities…

Een mijlpaal voor de Class of 2025 van de MSc International Relations and Diplomacy: een prestigieuze en internationale opleiding gevierd in Den Haag en Leiden.

‘’ And then the world changed forever ,welcome to the future’’. These are the words that Kausik Ray (President of the European Atherosclerosis Society) spoke when the worldwide first dose of inclisiran, a novel SiRNA based cholesterol lowering agent, was administered at the Cardiology lipid clinic at…

PhD candidate Maia Casna received an Incentive Prize from the Dutch Association for Physical Anthropology (NVFA). She was rewarded this honor for her innovative research into respiratory diseases and her talent for presenting her results to both academic and general audiences. ‘It feels really nice…

Last July, Robbert Dijkgraaf, Minister of Education, Culture and Science and Annetje Ottow, President of Leiden University's Executive Board, opened the new front office of the Leiden University office in Jakarta. The office - located on the grounds of the Dutch embassy - has a dual role. Firstly, it…

A mediation meeting was held today between the University Council and the Executive Board about the appointment procedure for the Vice-Rector of Organisational Development, Erwin Muller. We have managed to resolve the dispute.

Thijs Porck, university lecturer of medieval English at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society, has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (RHS).

This year's RISE Award goes to emeritus professor Jetty Kleijn (LIACS). According to the board of RISE, Kleijn has dedicated herself in the past years to gender equality within LIACS and the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. It is the first time since the introduction of the award in 2018…

Carola Schoor, programme manager for Public Affairs at the Centre for Professional Learning (CPL), reflects on Politico on the State of the European Union speech by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen from a political strategy and messaging perspective.

ULLA, the European University Consortium for Pharmaceutical Sciences, is welcoming our tenth member: the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences of the University of Geneva. The School, which is heading the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Western Switzerland (ISPSO) representing several academic institutions…

Last week Russia and Ukraine met for the first time since the outbreak of the war. The talks took place in Belarus.

Geert de Snoo is making the transition from the Netherlands Institute of Ecology to the management of KNAW. Starting 1 October, the professor of Environmental Biology will begin his role as Director of Research Policy in a new, consensus-based management team.

One of the largest roofs at Leiden University, that of the Snellius building, has recently been equipped with 590 solar panels and 57,000 sedum plants, making it the largest combined roof in the Benelux. The roof was officially opened on Monday 10 October by Annetje Ottow and Martijn Ridderbos, President…

Leiden University has become a partner of the Global Coalition for Social Justice.

Hundreds of students and staff from Leiden University gave a ‘whistle concert’ on 11 December against the planned cuts to higher education. Similar protests were held in other student cities on the same day.

For almost 25 years, ‘de Handboeken Veiligheid’ have been a phenomenon. Who does not have a copy on their bookshelf? In 2024, the series will be celebrating its 25th anniversary and next Monday, the Public Prosecution Handbook will be presented: the latest volume in the series. Erwin Muller talks about…

Op dinsdag 10 januari 2022 zijn tijdens de facultaire nieuwjaarsreceptie de jaarlijkse Meijersprijzen en de scriptieprijzen uitgereikt.

How do you co-create with researchers in other parts of the world? LDE wants to gather and share knowledge on the grand challenges and to do so across national borders. A delegation of 27 researchers will therefore travel to Indonesia at the end of October to take part in the LDE-BRIN Academy.

Meijerslezing, Meijersprijzen en Van Wersch springplankprijs en Nieuwjaarsreceptie 2024

Het zal niemand ontgaan zijn dat de digitale dreigingen blijven toenemen. Uit monitoring door onze cybersecurity-experts blijkt dat er continu wordt geprobeerd om ook onze systemen binnen te dringen. Wat doen wij daartegen en hoe kan jij als medewerker bijdragen aan onze cyberveiligheid?

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

This month the University and several partners signed the rental contract for the brand-new Spui building. What will this location mean for the future of Campus The Hague, Leiden University and the population of The Hague? Martijn Ridderbos explains in his column.

We take it for granted that water comes out of the tap and electricity out of the socket. But that isn’t always the case. Last Tuesday began like any other day, with our board meeting in the morning. But things were soon to change.

We want to be an engaged community where we feel heard and enjoy working together. But how do we have an open conversation about difficult topics?

The Executive Board proposes to take the decision to suspend the existing institutional student exchange programmes with two Israeli universities, and until further notice not to engage in any new exchange programmes with Israeli universities that have comparable links with the Israeli military (the…

People in leadership roles are unlikely to discuss leadership skills with their colleagues. But that is precisely what we as a university would like them to do. Because trust in one another’s abilities will make us an agile university that innovates and makes room for talent.

The rising energy prices cannot have escaped anyone’s notice. They have dominated the news in recent months. As a university, we too face a big challenge as the prices continue to rise. We will all have to do our bit in the coming months, also in view of the climate crisis that we want to help resol…

The results of the Personnel Monitor 2022 are out. Now the ball is in all of our courts. What does the Monitor tell us and how can we act on it? I hope that as an organisation we can get a good dialogue going as the first step towards improvement.

NWO (the Dutch Research Council) has granted more than 10 million euros for five human-centered AI research projects (2.1M€ each). Leiden University participates in two of these five research proposals, which are called ELSA labs.