The new Students for Leiden party pulled off a stunning victory in the municipal elections. From nowhere, the party won two seats on Leiden Municipal Council. How are brand-new student councillors Mitchell Wiegand Bruss and Elianne Wijnands doing? ‘We’ve already asked questions about the quality of…

To tackle the high workload at our university, and at the insistence of the University Council, the Executive Board launched the Workload Reduction Fund last year. The first fund-financed projects have since begun. Two staff members explain how their ideas can help others.

Injections can be a source of stress and anxiety for children. The Willem-Alexander Children’s Hospital is exploring ways to improve the experience. Together with illusionist Victor Mids and researchers from Leiden, they have shown that magic can help.

The Andrea Evers Fund provides funding for innovative, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects in the area of health and well-being.

Leiden University is committed to making your work safe, healthy and enjoyable.

Speaking with your manager more often, focusing explicitly on well-being and giving more recognition and rewards for teamwork and team performance: the annual Performance & Development (P&D) interview will have a new format and also a new name. With the acronym GROW (Gesprekken over Resultaat, Ontwikkeling…

Festival

Smiling faces, a mass dance and a bit of awkwardness: after two ‘corona editions’ of EL CID, the Leiden introduction week is back with a vengeance this year. A total of 3,412 first-year students from Leiden University and University of Applied Sciences Leiden, accompanied by 486 mentors, started EL…

Lecture

Of the women studying at university, 52% have experienced some form of sexual harassment. For male students, the figure is 19%.

Sexual harassment was the theme of the recent annual symposium of student ambassadors to the Leiden-Bollenstreek police in collaboration with the police and the municipality. An extremely important issue to students − if the 100 places being claimed as soon as the symposium was announced was anything…

The Healthy Society Programme (HSP) has selected five scale-up projects for a special acceleration grant, giving successful health initiatives the opportunity to be rolled out more widely across the province of South Holland. One of these projects is StartKracht, led by clinical psychologist Anika B…

Hit the brakes! That’s the advice of the Council for Public Health and Society in a recent report. Eight psychologists share their insights on how to slow down and reconnect.

Here you will find questions and answers about GROW, the types of interviews, the GROW tile and more.

Veel mensen denken dat zware metalen giftig zijn en mens en natuur altijd schade aanbrengen. Dat beeld moet genuanceerd worden, vindt hoogleraar Sylvestre Bonnet.

Within our university, we believe it is important to remain in dialogue with each other, to hear what is going on, and to take steps together. This allows us to build an environment in which we can work and grow together.

An independent review committee has unanimously selected three projects to receive a grant from the Prof. Andrea Evers Fund for Health, Behaviour and Society. The fund, which was launched earlier this year, supports innovative inter- and transdisciplinary research in health and well-being.

A generation is growing up in The Hague Southwest with little outdoor play space. Researchers from Health Campus The Hague are following what the BRUIS neighbourhood approach does and means for children and young people in the neighbourhood.

The first results of the National Student Survey (Nationale Studenten Enquête: NSE) reveal that students at Leiden University are satisfied with their study programme.

More than half of our staff took our Employee Experience Survey last spring. We shared the initial findings at the start of July, and since then we’ve taken a closer look at the results and how best to act on them. For Vice-President of the Executive Board Timo Kos, the next steps are clear.

Would you like to develop your discussion skills? We provide a variety of training resources for staff members and managers. The topics covered include making a connection, listening, giving feedback and reflection.

Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker will retire on 8 February. If there’s one theme running through his career, it’s the links between the University and society. In this series of pre-retirement discussions, Stolker will talk one last time to people from within and without the University. In this edition…

The availability of natural resources, the energy transition, the importance of circularity and our dependence on China. This and more is what Professor of Industrial Ecology René Kleijn's inaugural lecture is about.

‘It was the biggest bunch of flowers I’d ever seen,’ says Emily Strange about the moment she won the Leiden Teaching Prize 2022. The judge praised the conservation biologist for her passion, engaging personality, and the way she motivates her students. On the Dutch Day of the Teacher, we get to know…

It’s not healthy but we often do it anyway: sit hunched at our computer for hours on end. But exercising and relaxing at work doesn’t have to be complicated. These staff members have come up with fun and easy ways to help their colleagues stay fit and healthy. ‘You don’t need sportswear and won’t end…

Why are health problems such as loneliness and obesity so persistent? What causes them to occur more frequently in some neighborhoods than others? And how can we solve them? You will learn about these topics in the new minor 'Co-creating a Healthy Society'.

From social inequalities in prehistory to placebo effects in medical treatments. Four researchers from Leiden University have been awarded a prestigious ERC Advanced Grant worth EUR 2.5 million to develop their research.

After a turbulent Covid year, the well-being of our students and staff has the highest priority. How can we prevent physical and mental health problems? This was the key question at the Opening of the Academic Year in Pieterskerk in Leiden on 6 September.

Leiden University offers various training programmes and workshops that contribute to student well-being.

With its Green Deal The European Union has set itself much-needed ambitious climate goals. But the energy crisis and geopolitical tensions are making these difficult to achieve. Seven researchers from the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities (LDE) alliance have written a white paper offering solutions.

Talking about suicide is important, but anything but comfortable. To make this difficult subject easier for students and staff to discuss, the university is organising a campaign week in line with the national campaign ‘1K Z1E J3’ (I see you) being run by Stichting 113 Zelfmoordpreventie (113 is the…

Exhibition

Met een openingswoord, een paneldiscussie op de Spaanse Trappen in Wijnhaven en een druk op de rode knop voor het gebouw zelf, is POPcorner The Hague donderdagmiddag officieel geopend door rector magnificus Hester Bijl.

A discount on textbooks is always welcome. But for these students joining a study association has meant much more than that alone.

The POPCorner The Hague festive opening week has been postponed due to the more restrictive corona measures, but the website is online, its’ employees are roaring to go, and there are plenty courses and workshops available to take part in. High time to get to know more about this meeting point for and…

How do you behave towards patients with life-threatening conditions who do not want to know all the details of the state of their health? This question brought psychologist Liesbeth van Vliet and anthropologist Annemarie Samuels together. It’s an unusual partnership, but their interdisciplinary approach…

Thirteen teams of inventive staff rose to the challenge of creating brand-new AI applications to lighten their workload during the AI Cocreation Lab. At the closing ceremony in the Academy Building, participants showed their pitch films, and an expert jury announced the winning prototypes.

Didactics

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.’

In our new strategic plan (Innovating and Connecting – 2022-2027) we focus on stronger connections: between disciplines, with society and within our university community.

Conference

Transferable skills

As a student mentor or student tutor, you are involved in the mentoring programme on behalf of your study programme. You will receive information about your role from a dedicated mentoring coordinator from your study programme or faculty.

Today, ESA’s Gaia mission releases its new treasure trove of data about our home galaxy. Astronomers, led by the Leiden astronomer Anthony Brown, describe strange ‘starquakes’, stellar DNA, asymmetric motions and other fascinating insights in this most detailed Milky Way survey to date.