Higher education research improves the quality of education. And these investments more than pay for themselves in terms of well-being and prosperity. This is what Professor of Education Science Roeland van der Rijst will say in his inaugural lecture.

ECOLe is expanding. From 4 November, you can also contact them for questions about BKO (University Teaching Qualification), didactics, educational innovation, and teacher development.

Education

Veel Nederlanders hebben fysieke, psychische en sociale problemen tegelijk. Zij hebben hulp nodig van meerdere professionals uit verschillende organisaties. Fia van Heteren onderzoekt hoe deze professionals met elkaar én met cliënten samenwerken, en welke factoren deze samenwerking versterken of bel…

No more lectures and exams for the Radio Astronomy course taught by Michiel Brentjens. The corona crisis is a moment of reflection that has changed his whole way of teaching. Instead of being in front of the class, he lets his students build a radio telescope with paint cans.

Didactics

Workshop

Education, Facility, ICT, Organisation

The new Comenius Calls have been published. You can use a Comenius grant for innovation projects that help improve higher education. Associate Professor David Ehrhardt from Leiden University College (LUC) in The Hague received a Comenius grant in 2020 and is now implementing his Comenius teaching project…

Leiden University wants to attract the best academics. What requirements does it set for new academic staff members? What requirements must you meet for a career in academia? Read more about our career policy for academic staff.

Emmely Benschop (41) has been working as the new director of the Centre for Professional Learning (CPL) in The Hague for several months now. She sees significant growth potential.

For each academic year, a new timetable is created. This process already starts in January for the following academic year. The timetable is created for the entire year, which means that in January you must submit your teaching plans for the second semester of the following year.

On 25 January, the annual Education Kick-off took place. The day was focussed on activating education, the possibilities of GenAI for teachers and a 'serious game' around the new timetable with blocks of 7 teaching weeks.

Professor Dr. Carsten Stahn LLM., Professor of International Criminal Law and Global Justice at the University of Leiden, completed his habilitation in July 2020 at the Humboldt-University zu Berlin and acquired the Venia for Constitutional Law, International Law and International Criminal Law. The…

‘I’m setting Academia in Motion by fostering inclusive practices and enabling data reuse and sharing, with both researchers and students.’ With these words Naomi Truan, Assistant Professor of German Sociolinguistics at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, highlights how she is helping to support…

Whether you’re giving a course for the first time or aiming to update your learning objectives or teaching formats, effective education starts with good course design. This step-by-step plan will help you create or innovate your course: from learning objectives to teaching formats.

According to Nivja de Jong, second language acquisition is 'the most fascinating subject in linguistics'. As a recently appointed professor of Second Language Acquisition and Pedagogy, she studies the question of how best to teach people a new language.

Work pressure is still high across the entire organisation. Leiden University is not unique in this respect, as all Dutch universities are facing high levels of work pressure. In an effort to reduce work pressure, we have launched a toolkit including practical measures at central, faculty, and individual…

Constructive alignment is a core principle of educational design. It ensures that you design courses, materials, activities and curricula with which your students can achieve the learning objectives you set out for them.

Evaluation is an important instrument in revealing, monitoring and improving the quality of your teaching.

This academic year saw the start of the Change Lab(oratory) project. Teaching staff from various departments worked on innovations in their master's courses: 'It’s a privilege to improve your teaching and get so many useful tips in the process.'

Professor Herman Paul has been appointed Scientific Director of the Institute of History from 1 February 2025. ‘Especially in these times, transparency is essential.’

From exploring global issues at LUC to shaping young minds in the classroom, LUC alumna Malou den Dekker shares how her academic journey led to a career in education.

Recently, Daniel Schade joined the Institute for History as an Assistant Professor in the History and International Studies section as part of the European Union Studies team. Below he introduces himself.

On the brand-new Leiden Teachers Blog, Leiden teachers share their experiences with educational innovation. They show colleagues, students, and everyone else who is interested the different facets of creating university education.

Our aim with the Humanities Campus is to create a sustainable and attractive campus with ample green spaces and opportunities for interaction, complemented by modern and future-proof facilities. The campus is being developed in stages. On this page, you can find information about the planning, latest…

During the course BBO II: Multi-Level Governance, students learn to make the link between theory and society by completing a challenging practical assignment.

As you may know, a draft profile for a broad BA programme in Languages and Cultures has been in development for some time. On 21 December 2021, the Faculty Board decided to end the design process of that broad bachelor’s degree programme. However, as the Faculty Board and partners in the discipline…

Na Zhou (PhD at ICLON) researched how vocational teachers’ learning takes place in a work placement programme and how their learning supports their teaching in school. Defence on 1 March.

Mirjam de Baar has been Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and portfolio holder for education of master’s and research master’s programmes since 2016. As a result of her reappointment, she will continue to fulfil this role for an additional four years. ‘Being asked by the Vice-Rector and the Dean…

Research

Almost 3,500 visitors came to Master’s Open Day in Leiden and The Hague.

An NWO Veni application by Linda Geven, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, has been honoured. She will spend the next three years conducting research into false confessions in police interrogations.

Which collaborative learning approaches already exist in conservatoire education, and how could such approaches be implemented? This is the subject of Tamara Rumiantsev’s (PhD candidate at ICLON) thesis. Defence on 14 April 2022.

This month, ten teachers received a Senior Qualification Education (SKO), including Marcellus Ubbink and Daan van der Es from our faculty. Why did they go through the process of getting qualified, and should all teachers have an SKO?

The Schoof cabinet has presented its budget. As expected, higher education is facing severe cuts. In the coming period, the Executive Board will regularly look at the consequences of what it deems an irresponsible policy.

Research

The Schoof cabinet has presented its budget. As expected, higher education is facing severe cuts. In the coming period, the Executive Board will regularly look at the consequences of what it deems an irresponsible policy.

Leiden University’s Executive Board (CvB) visited Leiden University College in The Hague on Friday 11 November during a working visit tour past the Institutes of the Faculty Governance and Global Affairs. Hester Bijl and Martijn Ridderbos were provided with an overview of the programme, the research,…

Management, Personal development, Leadership

In this flash interview we get a flash introduction of our President and alumna Annetje Ottow.

On Tuesday, February 10, 2026, Professor Saskia Jaszoltowski, the new Visiting Professor for Central European Studies at Leiden University joined students, colleagues and friends of Austrian Studies at Leiden for a lunch-time talk that introduced her exciting research to our community.

As of 1 September, Jeroen van Zon started as professor by special appointment in Quantitative Developmental Biology at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL). Van Zon is also group leader of Quantitative Developmental Biology at the physics research institute AMOLF. Three questions about his new role…

The Faculty of Archaeology is pleased to announce that Dr Sarah Schrader has been appointed as the new Head of the Department of Archaeological Sciences (DV). In April 2026 she succeeds Dr Jason Laffoon, who has led the department for the past six years.

In the Educatips column, Psychology lecturers share their most valuable insights on teaching. This month: Laura Nawijn and colleagues are designing an e-learning programme to improve the thesis supervision of clinical psychologists. ‘You don’t want to hold students’ hands, but you do want to give them…

Lydie Cabane and Seda Gürkan, respectively PhD-coordinator and Assistant Professor at ISGA, are starting a new programme to support and train ISGA PhD-candidates. They tell us more about the programme: ‘We aim to facilitate a successful completion of PhD trajectories.’

Missing legends, illogical connections or three-dimensional graphs. There are many ways in which data can deceive. Five students took up the fight against misleading statistics. Their lesson series can now be found online.