Fifteen passionate lecturers earned their Senior Teaching Qualification (SKO) on Monday 22 January. Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl congratulated them in the Academy Building. Four of these lecturers talk about what motivated them to take the SKO and how it has benefitted them.

Research

Seksueel misbruik tussen broers en zussen kan diepe, mentale wonden veroorzaken. Orthopedagoog Sheila van Berkel geeft behandelaars tips voor hoe zij deze wonden kunnen helpen helen.

During the last couple of months, Leiden University has conducted many constructive discussions with the University Council and many other experts and groups from the academic community. Based on their input, the Executive board has decided to create a preliminary policy regarding our ties to Israeli…

How can the university decide which partners to work with and why? This is a question many of us have, both within and outside our community. The advice presented by the Temporary Committee on Assessing Ethical Aspects of Collaborations should provide answers.

Leiden University will award two honorary doctorates at its Dies Natalis on 9 February 2026. They will go to internet studies scholar Safiya Umoja Noble and philosopher Catherine Malabou.

Do you want to post an announcement or report any content that needs changing? If so, please contact the web editorial team for your faculty or department.

On January 30th, students from the interdisciplinary LDE minor "Co-creating a Healthy Society" presented their findings to external clients, such as the Municipal Health Service (GGD) and the Municipality of Leiden. The minor started two years ago. Led by Sandra van Dijk and Coen Wirtz, it is now a…

Dutch politics is becoming increasingly polarised, and forming stable governments seems more difficult than ever. In the heat of the election race, a psychologist and a historian offer cool-headed advice.

On Monday 28 March a ‘pen test’ will be carried out to check the security of the classroom scanners. These people counters in University buildings were temporarily switched off in December after there was growing disquiet about privacy aspects of the devices. The pen test will be carried out in the…

The rules of play for researchers are becoming increasingly complex. This makes it essential that they receive the best possible support with challenges such as complicated grant procedures or strict privacy and ethics requirements. Leiden’s research support professionals have a network in which they…

Assistant Professor Briitta van Staalduinen has received the Best Dissertation Award from the American Political Science Association, Section on Class and Inequality. Her dissertation, Ethnic Inequality in the Welfare State, aims to reconcile the persistence of ethnic inequalities in expansive welfare…

8 April, we hosted our very first research day—an exciting beginning with more to come in the future. We were able to show how researchers and support staff collaborate to secure research grants, conduct studies in accordance with the latest rules and regulations, and tackle challenges head-on.

Connecting scientific fields, enhancing research and teaching, and providing innovative solutions to complex social issues: that is the idea behind interdisciplinary research. What did the university achieve in 2024? A small sample.

Leiden University has recently received various petitions from students and staff concerning our ties with Israeli universities. We have also held extensive discussions with the University Council in response to questions raised on the subject. We think it important that our partners and research projects…

Video conferencing from your sitting room and algorithms on social media that know your interests: new technology is an increasingly integral part of our lives. At the same time there is a growing call to protect our privacy, and this is causing friction, at the University too. In part because of the…

Leiden University has secured fifth place in SustainaBul, the sustainability ranking for universities and universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands.

Technology and privacy, trust and mistrust. A discussion about this broke out when the University installed scanners and students protested. On Wednesday 2 February experts from Leiden University will explore this topic at the eponymous symposium. We called Roy de Kleijn, as a computer scientist and…

Innovative, future-proof teaching methods were the theme of the tenth Leiden Teachers’ Academy Education Conference that took place on 5 June.

For conducting experiments involving animals, you need a project license and a valid research plan. On this page, you will read what this entails and how to submit these documents. You will also find other relevant information regarding conducting research involving animals here.

Research, Transferable skills

How do you keep participants engaged in your research from start to finish? And how do you connect your research with a wider audience? As a science communication adviser, Eva Slings works with researchers at Psychology on these and other questions. Colleagues share their experiences.

Security

A webpage for your research project can help with participant recruitment and foster collaboration with fellow researchers or social partners. Creating such a page used to be a time-consuming task, but with the help of AI, the communications team can now build a clear project page much more quickly.

Racism and discrimination come in many different shapes and forms – in the Netherlands too. Verbal attacks, stereotypes and violence: some people are confronted with these on a daily basis. A group that is often not included in research and the debate on racism is people of Asian descent. The Diversity…

How do you fulfill a chairing position during a team meeting? How do you visualise a dataset for a presentation? How do you write the introduction to a scientific article? All Science students can find the answers to these and many more questions in the 100+ skill modules on the digital Science Skills…

Are you a PhD candidate, and is there something you’d prefer to discuss with someone other than your thesis director or supervisor? The confidential counsellor for PhD candidates is here to help. You can speak to him/her in confidence and receive advice. If you experience symptoms of physical or mental…

The Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities strategic alliance celebrates its tenth anniversary in 2022. At the ‘The Next Ten Years’ anniversary celebration in the Faculty Club on 12 April, the partners looked back on their achievements and ahead to the major social challenges of the next ten years.

Research Director Judy Veldhuijzen, who started her new role this month, answers questions from colleagues. What is her vision for the institute? How does she view open leadership? And: how healthy is the GMN researcher herself?

Leiden University has had a turbulent week. There have been protests inside and outside our buildings that have evoked reactions, and students and staff have felt unsafe. We want with this message to look back at the past week and look forward to the future. What happened and how do we now want to move…

From academic freedom to security and medical breakthroughs: during Leiden University’s 451st Dies Natalis, the speakers reflected on the role of universities in a world of social and geopolitical tensions.

The Leiden University interdisciplinary program Liveable Planet is working on a ‘Liveable Planet Academy’ as a follow-up to its activities. The coordinating team visited the transdisciplinary Leuphana University (Germany) to get inspiration for the setup of the academy.

Leiden University has set up two committees to consider issues that are the focus of much attention within our community and society at large. They are the Knowledge Security Committee and the Fossil Fuel Industry Collaboration Committee. Former dean Joanne van der Leun will chair both.

In the ‘Educatips’ column, Psychology lecturers share their most important insights about teaching. This month, Joanne Mouthaan and Anna Hudson talk about an AI chatbot they are developing with which students can practise their suicide prevention skills. ‘It’s not really feasible to use actual people,…

How do we balance policy critique with constructive policy recommendations? How do we navigate power relations between policy makers and (disadvantaged) communities, without estranging either? And what are particularly productive methods for translating our medical anthropological insights into poli…

From historical understandings to new treatments: during the Public Day of the Leiden Institute for Brain & Cognition, curious visitors learned how rapidly research into brain disorders is evolving. ‘I found the neurosurgery and the research on organoids on chips particularly fascinating.’

Leiden University is known for its pioneering research and teaching. By offering education to professionals (lifelong learning), we want to bring this research and teaching expertise to the field and thus further increase our impact on society. With the aid of a grant from Leiden University Academy,…

In a new FSW Honours College course students from various academic disciplines dive into the world of artificial intelligence (AI). The course, 'Artificial Intelligence: Understand and Create' was designed by Marc Cleiren and Pieter Pierrot to be accessible to all students, regardless of their prior…

Onderzoekers van het Instituut Pedagogische Wetenschappen en de afdeling Jeugdrecht gaan samenwerken in 2 nieuwe onderzoeken: onderzoek naar het terugplaatsingen van kinderen na uithuisplaatsing en draagmoederschappen in Nederland.

Eleven lecturers from Leiden University have been awarded Comenius grants that will allow them to work with their teams on an innovation project within their own teaching. They have been awarded three grants of 100,000 euros within the Senior Fellows programme and four grants of 50,000 euros within…

Research, Security

Connecting worlds, enhancing research and teaching, and providing innovative solutions to complex social issues: that is the idea behind interdisciplinary research. In that respect, a huge amount happened at Leiden University in 2023.

Its idyllic setting and white sandy beaches have made the Maldives a hotspot for tourists. This provides an income but is a problem for the fragile natural environment. Students from various universities worked with the local people to make the soil more fertile. How did they go about it?

The Sustainability Monitor 2024 reveals that Leiden University has again taken significant steps to become a more sustainable and future-proof university. Since 1990, its carbon emissions have decreased by 50 per cent and, compared with 2019, its natural gas consumption has dropped by 32 per cent. Its…

Carola Hein, Professor of History of Architecture and Urban Planning TU Delft, has been affiliated with the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology of Leiden University since January 2022 as Professor Water, Ports, and Historic Cities. On the surface this may seem a strange combination,…