Organisation

Everything is peaceful again in and around the Wijnhaven building at Campus The Hague. Earlier today, the location was the scene of a large pro-Palestinian protest. Lectures were cancelled. In the end, everyone left the building voluntarily.

Organisation

When discussing enslavement, attention often focuses on Africans forcibly shipped to South America. Researcher Timo McGregor's new Veni research sheds light on a lesser-known method, whereby indigenous populations were enslaved through the households of colonisers.

Leiden University and the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) have signed an agreement on ICT for research. This is the further concretisation of previous cooperation between the two.

A tour, presentations, drinks, and a quiz: new employees were warmly welcomed at the first faculty onboarding session. On a Thursday afternoon, they got to know the faculty.

Self-employed workers’ hours have significantly decreased during the coronavirus crisis. Their average hours worked decreased most at the start of the crisis, by more than five hours per week. And it was difficult to return to their pre-crisis hours in the quarters that followed. This is the conclusion…

The European Commission has selected a consortium of major European launcher and satellite manufacturers, operators and service providers, as well as policy and legal research centres and institutes to study and provide guidelines and recommendations on Space Traffic Management (STM). The IIASL of Leiden…

Leiden University College The Hague received the 'Top rated Programme' seal from the Keuzegids Universiteiten 2022 (Dutch University Guide). It is the ninth consecutive time the Liberal Arts & Sciences programme focusing on Global Challenges is awarded the honorary seal.

Do you want your research to fit the rubric of heritage? Is heritage a relevant concept here? These were some of the questions that came up in the lively discussion following twelve five-minute pitches given by Leiden researchers at the ‘Academic Open Mic’ workshop in the Lipsius building on Thursday…

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded a grant of €2,858,000 from the Dutch National Research Agenda (NWA) for tackling sexually transgressive behaviour and sexual violence (SGOG). Mischa Dekker, assistant professor and member of the Violence and Violence Prevention research group, is a co-applicant…

The Choose a Language Day was created to make high school students enthusiastic about choosing a linguistic profile and further education. Third-years were able to learn about different language studies at the Faculty of Humanities.

One of our PhD candidates at the LACDR, Joey Zuijdervelt, recently achieved recognition by winning the first prize in the ‘Schild-De Groen Onderzoeksprijzen’ for cancer research. His award-winning master’s thesis explored glioblastoma multiforme through an innovative orthotopic zebrafish xenograft model,…

Sinds Februari, werkt Angus Mol als UD bij het Centre for Digital Humanities (LUCDH). Zijn aanstelling wordt gedeeld door het Instituut voor Geschiedenis en het Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS). Hiervoor werkte hij voor het Prins Claus Fonds voor Cultuur en Ontwikkeling, deed NWO-Rubicon onderzoek…

Just outside Leiden city centre is the Sylvius building. This building of the Faculty of Science houses no fewer than 25 labs where FGW and FSW scientists conduct their research.

Organisation

On Tuesday 8 April, the CV of Failures exhibition was officially opened by Hester Bijl. Members of the university community share their personal stories during the exhibition. They offer an honest insight into the rejections, setbacks, and unexpected turns that have shaped their journeys.

On the 30th of December, we received the sad message that our Kenyan colleague, Kennedy Kaminju Kariuki died on December 28, 2023 in the NW hospital in Nairobi at the age of 35 years from organ and heart failure. Kennedy was a PhD candidate at the CML, Leiden University.

Dutch knowledge institutions are taking steps to recognise and reward open science. On 13 December, the Open Science NL Steering Board approved a total of 1.2 million euros in grants to 23 institutions. The Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) will lead the national coordination of the local…

The History programme has been working for several years to make the curriculum more diverse and inclusive. With a Comenius grant, university lecturer Kim Beerden wants to take the next step.

Loes Janssen would like to foster well-being of families by using an app and sending families short and fun activities each day to do together. For the Synergy Award ’21, PhD candidates were invited to submit their innovative idea on how to create societal impact. Watch the final on 4 February and vote…

The aim is to involve as many faculty colleagues as possible in the development of the new Faculty Strategic Plan (FSP). So after several stakeholder meetings and information gathering, the ball is now in the court of four working groups with a variety of members. They will carry out a SWOT analysis…

Education

Resistance to antibiotics is a major problem in health care. Thanks to a grant from the Elise Mathilde Fund and the LUF, pharmacologist dr. Coen van Hasselt can look for new dosing schedules to reduce the development of antibiotic resistance.

An international team of researchers, including scholars from Leiden University, has received a Seed Funding Grant within the Una Europa network. The project, Democracy and AI, focuses on the impact of artificial intelligence on the functioning of democratic systems.

On 24 and 25 April 2025, the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam — home to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) — hosted an interdisciplinary workshop organized by dr. Rafal Matuszewski, an ancient historian at the Institute for History in Leiden.

Applications are now open for the Summer School ‘The European Union, the United Nations and Global Governance’ (12 - 23 June 2023) for Master-level and PhD students. The activity is supported by the European Union’s Jean Monnet programme (Erasmus+).

What do a linguist, an artist, a Professor of Conservation and Restoration, and a lecturer at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science have in common? They all use Artificial Intelligence. On 7 April they discussed the use of AI at Leiden’s Kijkhuis cinema.

The lecture halls in the Lipsius were full of curious secondary school students in January. During a special profile selection afternoon, they were introduced to the faculty and language studies. ‘I had no idea that Hebrew and Arabic were similar.’

Small, remote islands were long thought to have been the last frontiers of pristine natural systems. Humans are not thought to have been able to reach or inhabit these environments prior to the dawn of agriculture, and the technological shift that accompanied this transition. A paper recently published…

The largest international conference on English historical linguistics is coming to Leiden. From 7 June to 11 June 2021, the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) organises the International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL-21). Due to Covid measures, the conference takes…

With the childcare benefits scandal in the Netherlands, certain interests in society were hidden for long to politics and governance. With the farmers’ protests, on the other hand, the major economic and political interests at stake were hidden for long to society. In her inaugural lecture on 16 September,…

An article by assistant professor Caspar Jacobs has been included in the prestigious Philosophers’ Annual, which compiles the ten best philosophy articles each year. In ‘Comparativist Theories or Conspiracy Theories?’, he addresses the question of whether objects have fundamental properties.

Water damage, old restorations and copper corrosion in some illustrations. De Materia Medica has been through a lot over the centuries. The manuscript dates from 1083 AD and is one of the oldest illustrated Arabic manuscripts in the world. Due to intensive use, De Materia Medica was no longer in good…

From a vegan community kitchen to a green framework for drug development: sustainability became more visible in everyday campus life at Leiden University in 2025.

Dr Peter Webb (LIAS) has been awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant for his project Geo-Poetic Analysis of Pre-Islamic Arabia (GeoPo).

Historian Paul van Trigt and Arabist Peter Webb have been awarded Consolidator Grants by the European Research Council (ERC). This grant of up to two million euros will allow them to consolidate their research team or programme.

On 28 October 2025, the FSW Education Festival returned, and brought together teachers, researchers, and students for an afternoon full of inspiration, dialogue, and hands-on learning.

Three Leiden researchers have been awarded a Vici grant by the Dutch Research Council. The funding of up to 1.5 million euros supports ‘talented, adventurous and pioneering researchers’. A total of 39 projects at Dutch institutions will receive a grant.

From 1 March 2025, a new university ‘fossil fuel collaboration’ committee will assess potential new collaborations with the fossil fuel industry and determine whether they comply with the Paris Agreement.

LUC students and staff came together this past semester to transform a local urban garden into a hands-on space for learning, experimentation, and community building.

Colleagues from the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences work on a variety of topics that contribute to a healthy society. Erik Bähre, Tessa Minter and Natashe Lemos Dekker presented their work during the Healthy Society Event on 9 June 2022.

The Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) has a new professor: as of 1 March, Frederic Lens has been appointed Professor of Biodiversity and Anatomy of Plants. For Lens, the appointment feels like a wonderful recognition. ‘I am pleased with Leiden University’s appreciation of my contributions to research…

Organisation

Although fighting the culture of top-down education and stimulating lecturers’ confidence to adapt courses to local context priorities is no easy job to complete in three years, the “SLEEI inheritance” already has three main components.

De Faculteit Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA) heeft een facultair team opgesteld om invulling te geven aan Academia in Motion (AiM).

An extra-long cortège, three honorary doctorates, a quiz about 450 years of university history, a Dies Natalis rap and a call to defend academic freedom: these all featured in Leiden University’s 450th Dies Natalis celebration and the official start of its jubilee year.

How can our university really become inclusive? This is what students and staff discussed at our annual Diversity & Inclusion symposium. ‘It’s moving from a have-to to a want-to’

Natalia Sobrino-Saeb, third-year student at Leiden University College The Hague, won the challenge by the Ignitor Fellowship Program held by the Nobel Peace Center for her essay on the threats to journalism in Mexico. On December 10th Natalia met the Committee of the Ignitor Fellowship in Oslo and attended…

‘We could share our knowledge more with others and apply it more widely,’ said Annetje Ottow, President of the Executive Board, while presenting the new Strategic Plan on the University’s 447th Dies Natalis. The new Strategic Plan therefore focuses on innovating and connecting, among disciplines and…