You speak Japanese, know everything about medieval art or understand exactly what Hegel meant. And then you graduate. Many Humanities students find it hard to enter the labour market. A relevant part-time job can help. Therefore, the faculty has been working together with the employment agency Randstad…

Organisation

Feeling good doesn’t just lift our mood—it also helps us stay flexible and resilient. A new study by an international team of neuroscientists shows that natural brain opioids released after rewards play a key role in broadening attention, offering fresh insights into stress, cognition, and well-bein…

What should you do when you fall ill? And what can you expect from your direct supervisor? As both an HR adviser and someone with personal experience, Marian van de Walle outlines the key things you need to know.

Research

Interdisciplinarity is more than a buzzword in academia. It’s essential for tackling today’s biggest challenges. But what does it look like in practice? How can PhDs learn the skills needed to work across disciplines, and how can supervisors master the art of guiding them?

Can you account for all the information and data in your possession? How do you deal with personal information? What do you do if there is a data breach? How do you save your data and are you aware of the regulations you need to adhere to while doing so? Where do you go if you are having ICT problems…

How satisfied are you with your work? And how can we improve? On Tuesday 6 May, our partner Welliba will invite you to take our 2025 Employee Experience Survey. We want your opinions on your workload, a respectful culture and more.

The gas prices now exceed 300 euros per megawatt hour – a record. The transition from fossil (natural gas, coal, oil) to renewable energy is needed and soon. But how do you get a society (and its citizens) to switch to sustainable energy?

Koen Keijzer combined three mathematical models into one unified system capable of making meaningful predictions about how cells form blood vessels. This helps biologists studying the chaotic, leaky blood vessels found in and around tumours.

Work might not always be enjoyable, but what if just a glance at the to-do list brings on a sense of dread? To initiate the conversation about this, the sixth Psychology Connected focused on work pressure and workplace enjoyment, offering tips rooted in positive psychology.

Older people are often approached from the perspective of their limitations when there is often much they still can and want to do. According to Professor Tineke Abma, art is a good way to continue to participate.

A psychology degree, a career that started in the commercial sector and now a role where she feels she can make a difference. For alumnus Marisse van Os (34) everything has come together in her current job at an innovative mental health services provider.

Chemotherapy, but without hair loss or extreme fatigue. It may be possible if the toxic drug only becomes active where it is ‘switched on’ by light. Matthijs Hakkennes has helped bring that idea closer to reality and obtained his PhD cum laude. ‘I received many thank-you emails from China and Bangla…

The Mindlab theatre and discussion programme will start at the Faculty of Humanities at the end of September. University lecturers Tazuko van Berkel and Sara Polak were moderators at the first session.

A team of students from Leiden won the iGEM international biology contest in 2020 with their Rapidemic mobile testing kit. The kit makes it easy to detect viruses. The team has now been nominated for the Most Innovative Student in the Netherlands prize. Cast your vote and help them develop their inv…

A subject like history is all about the past. That often involves scrolling through old documents, but in the Research Master's in History, Professor Dario Fazzi takes a different approach. His students work with Virtual Reality.

The jury of the Africa Thesis Award is delighted to announce that the 2025 prize has been awarded to Yonwaba Matshobotiyana of the University of the Free State, South Africa, with a thesis on Black women's poetry in South Africa.

All students of the Faculty of Science have access to the software distribution platform Academic Software.

The academic freedom core team was established by Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl in the summer of 2022. It comprises five professors from five different faculties: Martine de Vries (LUMC), Frits van der Meer (FGGA), Sense Jan van der Molen (Science), Jannemieke Ouwerkerk (Law) and Herman Paul (Humanities).…

Seminar

Workshop

Workshop

The Faculty Club is a meeting place for the University community, where you can enjoy a drink or an (in)formal lunch or dinner. It is also a great location for meetings, receptions, buffets and dinners.

Seminar

Students at research universities and universities of applied sciences are positive about their lecturers’ expertise and the atmosphere within their programmes. Almost one-third report experiencing excessive academic pressure. These are the findings of the 2026 National Student Survey.

Each research institute has its own dynamic. The Executive Board is visiting our institutes to find out what they are up to. On 24 June, it was the turn of the Institute for History. ‘History helps us make sense the present, whether through family stories, local issues or world politics.’

Online services are stored on servers in data centres. Remko Fermin researched methods to make the memory in data centres more energy efficient.

Can we reshape school playgrounds through data and design? By using AI and wearable sensors, data scientist Maedeh Nasri discovered ways to create environments where children, including those with ADHD and autism, can connect, play, and grow.

An X-ray scanner, some small metal balls, and a newly developed algorithm. That is all you need to make a 3D model that enables you to look inside art objects without dismantling them. Thanks to the research of Francien Bossema (Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica and Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer…

Scientists' computers are now full of complicated 3D models, but no standard has yet been developed for exchanging the data. A new database should change this. External PhD student Liselore Tissen is receiving a grant to contribute to this on behalf of Leiden University (and TU Delft). ‘It will be great…

Childhood trauma can have a lifelong effect. Many therapists do not dare to confront these vulnerable patients with their past because they are concerned that the patients will be unable to cope. Research has now shown that exposure therapy can be helpful for this group of people.

This academic year, we are welcoming several international students who have started studying at FGGA with a prestigious scholarship. We asked them about their background, their reasons for applying, and the application process. Congratulations to all students who have been awarded a scholarship!

Transferring poo from healthy donors to the intestines of chronically ill people has beneficial effects on these recipients’ gut bacteria, also in the longer term. This is the conclusion of research by the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) and the Netherlands Donor Feces Bank (NDFB).

Education

Education, Research

Anthropologist Rodrigo Ochigame studies how AI is changing the practice of scientific research. From astrophysics to mathematics to climate science, they find that the adoption of new AI models is raising questions about what counts as reliable scientific evidence.

The whole world is waiting anxiously for sufficient supplies of coronavirus vaccines. As Launch Navigator at Pfizer, alumnus Dennis de Mik must help ensure that the Netherlands receives 19.8 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. How is he going about this and how has his Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences…

ASTRON en de Universiteit Leiden beginnen samen een nieuwe leerstoel over sterrenkunde en AI. Bijzonder hoogleraar Joeri van Leeuwen gaat deze positie vullen.

Education, ICT

A plant-based diet could improve the resilience of our food system. Moving to such a diet in the European Union (EU) and United Kingdom (UK) alone could replace almost all the production losses from Russia and Ukraine. That’s what an international team of researchers conclude in Nature Food. Leiden…

LEGO creations, a clothesline of visions and a journey into the past and the future: just some of the highlights of Uni-vision day, where creatives developed their vision of the future of study.

If you work at home on a structural basis – at least one day a week – and you have an employment contract for 19 hours or more, you can request facilities for working from home

Diversity and inclusion within the police creates opportunities but also meets resistance. Professor by special appointment and former police officer, Saniye Çelik, emphasises how ambivalent feelings about D&I are essential to the learning process and can lead to informed decisions and real change.

A job thanks to COVID—something not many people can claim. But PhD candidate Vera Arntzen can. Over the past four years, she has mapped two crucial characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 infections. Thanks to her research, experts can now make well-informed decisions on matters like quarantine duration, which…

How can I get students to collaborate more and increase their engagement? That was the question that teacher, and winner of the 2022 Faculty Teaching Award, Astrid Van Weyenberg asked herself two years ago. Her solution? A method in which the use of podcasts ensures that students actively engage with…

Minuscule elementary particles from space colliding with Earth can give us an insight into the distant objects they come from. But first, you need to know how to catch them. With a Vidi grant from NWO, researcher Sjoert van Velzen will 'hunt' for neutrinos coming from exploding black holes.

Can we improve the living environment of people with dementia with software and smartwatches? Daniela Gawehns did research in a care facility for people with dementia as part of the project 'Dementia back in the heart of society'. This way, she tried to find out whether an open living environment leads…