Dear colleagues and students,

ESA’s space telescope Gaia, which maps the Milky Way, completes its active phase of scanning the sky on 15 January. Over the past decade, Gaia has made more than three trillion observations of about two billion stars and other cosmic objects. ‘Gaia is already the discovery machine of the decade,’ Leiden…

An extraordinary encounter took place in 1911. American scientists discovered the last 'wild' Indian, from the Yahi tribe, who had lived in total isolation for years. As he had no name, they called him Ishi. But who was this man, and what did this discovery mean to us? Cultural anthropologist Erik Bähre…

Social

Early treatment benefits patients who have not fully developed rheumatoid arthritis but are in the preliminary stages of the disease. This is what researchers from the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) have reported in The Lancet. Patients in the pre-arthritis stage who were temporarily prescribed…

Data Science & AI student Nataliia Bagan combines a passion for mathematics, language, and artificial intelligence. Her exceptional bachelor’s thesis on improving reasoning in large language models earned her a nomination for the Leiden Science Young Talent Award 2025.

ICT

Human resources

Manuscripts that look like a comic book, that's how you could describe the manuscripts of the Dongba people from China. The manuscripts are one of the last examples of a so-called pictographic script that can only be interpreted by Dongba priests, shamans, who have knowledge of the ancient Dongba cu…

Organisation

Betty de Jonge is a household name in our faculty. As the person behind AskBetty, she knew how to answer every question about Office. Starting this month, she has officially retired.

Adults who lost a parent during childhood tend to experience greater attachment anxiety in romantic relationships, according to Carline van Heijningen’s doctoral research. However, this anxiety was less pronounced among those who recall having a strong bond with their deceased parent during childhoo…

The left is gaining more and more ground on the political map of Latin America, with the elections in Colombia as the most recent example. But what’s behind this pull to the left? Professor of Modern Latin American History Patricio Silva talks about the current political situation in the region.

Amsterdam’s attitude to sex work, politeness in historical Arabic letters and malaria in the Middle Ages: again this year, there was a wide variety of topics in the Research Traineeship programme. On Friday 30 August, the trainees finished the last of these projects for now.

Film screening

Do you work from home and are you employed by Leiden University? If so, in addition to your home-working allowance, you are also entitled to an allowance for your internet expenses.

The faculty is always aiming to maintain and improve the quality of our education. To do so, there are several checks and balances in place. Additionally, there are always opportunities to take your education a step further.

Lecturers and/or members of a research group at our faculty, may be asked to supervise BSc or MSc students during their studies and research projects.

Whether it is educational design, practical organisation, the teaching itself, assessment or reflection and innovation - most of what is expected from you as a teacher is part of a bigger process. Some of these processes have strict deadlines, others don't.

The results of the 2026 University elections are in. Who will represent us on the participation organs?

If you find a new job or if your contract is coming to an end, there are a number of matters to consider.

Leiden researchers work together with other researchers from across the world. The University has developed a regional policy focused on three specific regions with which we maintain intensive contact through a number of faculties: China, Indonesia and Latin America and the Caribbean.

Organisation

This year’s We are Science Week was another great success! For the first time, the Campus Square was transformed into a true festival site. Take a look at the photos and join us in looking back on this enjoyable week!

To find funding, you first need to define your goal. Do you need to fund your own salary? Go abroad? Start up a collaboration? Buy equipment or do field work? Develop a company based on an invention that came out of the research? Next, find a match between your goal and the many funding opportunitie…

The Individual Choices Model offers a number of options for buying or saving additional leave days, or exchanging leave days for extra income.

All University employees and researchers have a personal profile page on the website. This page will show where you work and how you can be reached.

All staff members have their own profile page on the website. These pages include information about your work location and how you can be contacted. Are you looking for a colleague? Type his or her last name, first name, or first and last name in the search bar of the website.

When your contract with Leiden University ends, you may be entitled to unemployment benefits under the Unemployment Act (Werkloosheidswet, WW). You may also be eligible for supplementary unemployment benefits (Bovenwettelijke werkloosheidsuitkering, BWNU).

Together we create a healthy and safe working environment. Should an incident, dangerous situation or needle-stick injury nevertheless occur, please report it immediately. Such incidents are far more frequent than serious accidents. By reporting them we can make sure that they do not lead to serious…

After entering your username and password in Teams, Microsoft 365 and OneDrive, you need to confirm your login through the Microsoft Authenticator app. This is an extra security step (multifactor authentication).

Leiden University invests in a lasting relationship with alumni and partners. Here you will find more information on strengthening these ties and the possibilities for financial support, as well as answers to questions such as: How do I stay in touch with former students? How do I use the alumni database?…

Festival

Education

On Wednesday April 8, 2026, the Austria Centre Leiden and the Special Chair for Central European Studies hosted the Seventh Annual Lecture in Austrian Studies.

Each department of our faculty has a different way of onboarding new lecturers depending on your experience and type of teaching responsibilities.

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

Lecture

Which roles did books have in prayer in the late Middle Ages? What did the interaction with these books by readers and users look like? And how can we see this reflected in the books that were handed down?

Study information, Workshop