Your vote for the University and Faculty Council counts! The councils play an important role at the university. To vote click on the link in the right-hand column. Cast your vote by Friday 21 May, 16.00.

If you end up in prison somewhere in the world, the chances are you won’t be allowed to vote. If it were up to researchers Tom Theuns and Andrei Poama, rather than disenfranchise felons, we would oblige them to vote. That would be a better way to express democratic values.

It’s election time again on Wednesday 18 March – this time the municipal elections. Two Leiden University buildings are being used as polling stations: Oude UB in Leiden and Spui Campus in The Hague.

How do people vote? How rational are voting choices? How much do external factor weigh in? In this article social scientis provide some background.

What will it be like to study at Leiden University in 2075? Ten surprising, artistic uni-visions could be brought to life. It’s up to you to vote for your favourite.

On 18 March the municipal elections will be held, and you can cast your vote strategically for what you consider important in your town. This raises at least three important questions: what is strategic voting, how do you know if you are a strategic voter yourself, and what do you need to do to use…

Who wouldn’t want their own episode of Het Klokhuis? Researchers Milica Nikolic and Chris Riddell are in the running for the Klokhuis Wetenschapsprijs, which aims to introduce a broad and young audience to scientific research in the Netherlands.

Education, Organisation

The university elections are coming up. Sustainability, inclusion, student well-being: what do you think should get more attention? From 22 to 25 April you can vote for who represents you as a student on the University Council and your faculty council. Read on to find out more about the six student…

Leiden physicist Anne Meeussen has been nominated for the title of New Scientist Science Talent. She will be up against 14 young scientists from other Dutch and Belgian universities. The polls are already open!

Organisation

Education, Organisation

Poama and Theuns co-wrote an opinion piece on why voting in prison should be mandatory worldwide. It appeared on National Interest's website on February 12.

‘Men must make way. GroenLinks–PvdA voters are sending at least three additional women into the House of Representatives through preferential votes,’ Trouw headlined this week. What would happen if we allocated all seats on the basis of preferential votes? And would we see differences between the pa…

Between 6 and 9 June, you’ll be able to vote in the European elections. But what can you expect from these elections? What are the most important topics on the European agenda? And why should you even vote? Students from the European Law master’s specialisation explain.

Neele Boelens is a board member at DWARS, the youth organisation of political party GroenLinks. In addition, she is studying towards two degrees at Leiden University: Linguistics and Public Administration. A busy year, especially with the upcoming elections.

Organisation

Britain's biggest archaeology magazine has announced the nominees Book of the Year award and this time one of our own has been nominated!

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.

‘We have to have accountability.’ That was Roberta Metsola’ for her audience on Thursday evening. The President of the European Parliament had come to the Wijnhaven building to speak with students.

History student Mitchell Wiegand Bruss is taking part in the water council elections. Whereas until recently he had no idea what the governing body stands for, he now wants to create awareness among other students about the political body.

This summer, political scientist Thijs Vos received the Kaare Strøm prize for his paper ‘Power or Ideology? What structures legislative voting behaviour in Dutch municipal councils, ideology or coalition-opposition dynamics?' He was awarded the prize during the ECPR summer school on parliaments in F…

This year, there are elections for the student section of the University Council, the Faculty Councils and the Student Council of LUMC, the staff section of all Faculty Councils and all Employee Councils. What topics and positions do you find important? With your vote, you ultimately have a say in university…

Geert Wilders and his PVV party have won the 2023 elections. What was the deciding factor for this victory?

Leiden University values participation: the participation organs are the ears and eyes of the university. They identify issues of concern among staff and students and help advise and decide on the future of our organisation. Something for you? Then stand as a candidate! This year, elections will…

Who will represent us on the university’s participation councils? The results of the 2021 university elections have been announced. New representatives will be joining many of the participation bodies at the university – the faculty councils, the employee councils and the University Council.

Facility

Michiel Veldhuis received the most public votes for the C.J. Kok Public Award and may therefore call himself Discoverer of the Year. Veldhuis researches how climate change affects savannah ecosystems in Africa and how we can protect them.

Alain studies Public Administration and is politically active. He talks about why it is important for young people to be politically active and vote.

Once again the ONS student party (Enterprising Leiden Students) is the biggest party in the university elections. This gives the party three seats in the University Council. The staff are represented in the UR by FNV Government, with 5 seats.

In the University elections in April, the eight student seats on the University Council have gone to six parties, and newcomers the Liberal Student Party and the Party for Biomedical Students have each won one seat.

Koos Biesmeijer, Professor of Natural Capital, and Claire van Megen, an Educational and Child Studies student, are in with a chance of winning Leiden’s Person of the Year title.

Facility, Organisation

Populist parties in national parliaments have a different style of working from their colleagues in other parties. They often vote against Cabinet proposals, but do not ask more questions about Cabinet activities. This is the finding of Leiden research in different European countries.

Americans are electing a new president in November but they also have other choices to make in the polling booth. Alumnus Sanne Rijkhoff works at a Texas university and is trying to help make students more aware of the elections.

Every week, Uwe Hensch walks past the Old Observatory in Leiden. In corona times, he decided to make a LEGO design of the historic building. His design is now finished and might go into production. You can help to make it happen.

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…

The students and staff at the Faculty of Science celebrated Pi Day with… pie! More than twenty participants baked a pie for the first edition of the Leiden Science baking competition – people queued up to sample the creations.

They dreamed of Brussels, worked hard and finally succeeded: working for Europe. The list of Leiden University alumni in Brussels is long. A few days before the European elections, Julia Gencheva and Vincent Miča talk about how they ended up in Brussels and what their jobs entail.

German-American Mia Müller (26) has been working at the European Parliament for three years now as Press Officer at The Greens/EFA Group. She is a bit nervous about her 'first' elections.

The late 1960s: across Europe, students are demanding the right to more participation within their universities. In 1971 Leiden University was granted an elected University Council. It became quite powerful: the Council even had the right to dismiss the Chairman of the Board.

Towards the graduation ceremonies, you sense an increasing nervousness. Not only because all the tradition and glamour surrounding the event, also because that will be the day that the winner of the Political Science master’s thesis award will be announced. For 2022-2023, the jury is considering seven…

The year is 2032 and the Arctic ice cap has melted causing new trade routes to emerge. This case is the focal point of the Young Diplomat Conference during which honours participants spend a weekend as diplomats solving disputes between countries.