It was pouring with rain during the Opening of the Faculty Year, but in the Oranjerie, Dean Henk te Velde had a positive message for those present: the faculty is in better financial shape than expected, and a reorganisation is therefore off the table.

The Max van der Stoel Human Rights Award is presented every two years on 10 December (Human Rights Day) in recognition of outstanding academic works in the field of international human rights.

The winner of this year’s Iris Medal for Excellent Science Communication is Professor of Science Communication Ionica Smeets.

Education, Organisation

In the complex academic playing field, it is crucial that researchers and research support professionals know how to find each other. At Leiden University, these collaborations are indispensable too, say professor Gilles van Wezel and project manager Mariana Avalos Garcia. ‘Without support, this project…

A mega-dam around Europe is a possible solution as protection against rising sea levels. Whether that is really a good idea, was debated on by young professionals during the debate on the future of European coastal protection. 'A big dam may seem safe, but actually isn't,' argued debate winner Haye…

During the official Faculty Opening of the Academic Year on Thursday 25 September, FSW staff and students heralded a new and inspiring academic year.

A TikTok by student Loïs de Jong from Leiden University in which Leiden sparkles as a student city won the final of the Leiden Media Contest on 13 June. According to the jury, the film was ‘the most appealing for today’s generation of current and prospective students – it includes nearly all elements…

Bernhard Rieger recently joined the Institute for History as our new Professor of European History. He introduces himself.

The LUCAS Audience Award 2021 has been awarded to Nadine Akkerman. This is a prize for researchers who appeal to an audience wider than the academic community. The prize consists of 1000 euros, a trophy and eternal fame.

Working together in times of change. With enthusiasm, passion and connection as our keywords. That was the message emphasised by administrators Jasper Knoester and Luc Sels at the start of this new year for our Science faculty. ‘Hope for a better world means working together actively towards progres…

Also in 2024, our colleagues from the Institute of Psychology were visible in the media in various ways. Check out their appearances in Dutch media, from NRC to the Podcast psychologist.

'Echoes of the Silent Roots' by Mark Lindenberg wins the Multimodal Incentive Grant for Alumni of the Metje Postma Awards. His film is a touching auto-ethnographic project about family estrangement and repair. Ieke van Dam won the Excellence in Visual & Multimodal Ethnography Thesis Prize for her film…

Mojan Samadi obtained her PhD in 2020 in Leiden and has since remained at the university as an assistant professor. Her research currently focuses on gender and criminal law, with a key question being how criminal law should address femicide.

Within our university, we believe it is important to remain in dialogue with each other, to hear what is going on, and to take steps together. This allows us to build an environment in which we can work and grow together.

To help you make the impact or valorisation of your scientific research more clearly apparent, we have created a Leiden Impact Matrix.

The LUCAS Institute has both a new Scientific Director and a new Education Director. Stijn Bussels and Esther Op de Beek both commenced their new roles at the start of the academic year.

Leiden University has taken eighth place in this year’s SustainaBul, the sustainability ranking for universities and universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands. It was in 18th place last year.

Writer in residence Ronald Giphart will explore a number of his own fascinations with Leiden students.

Dr Mark Leiser, Assistant Professor at eLaw, and Wen-Ting Yang, former Law And Digital technologies student, won the Best Paper award at BILETA, the United Kingdom’s largest tech and legal education conference.

On World DNA Day 25 April, Leiden University is pleased to focus the spotlight on Rosalind Franklin, whose name was given earlier this month to the Campus Square on the Leiden Bio Science Park. This square will now be known officially as the Rosalind Franklin Square.

Five mathematics students from Leiden University and their coach stood out this summer in Bulgaria at the IMC: the International Mathematics Competition for university students. Lance, Ryan, Casper, Mads and Lars tackled tough maths problems and also made the most of the Bulgarian sunshine.

After eight years as professor at the Institute of Psychology, Carsten de Dreu is making the move to the University of Groningen, where he has been appointed to the chair ‘Foundations of Cooperation and Social Organisation’. On 18 June, he will bid farewell to colleagues at Leiden University.

The Leiden University College (LUC) education team behind The Learning Mindset (TLM) has received 800,000 euro’s during the Dutch Higher Education Award Ceremony 2022. The LUC team was second behind Universteit Twente. The prize was awarded during the annual Comenius Festival of the Comenius Network.…

What are the advantages of a day’s work at home? Were we happy working from home during the pandemic lockdowns? And who is actually responsible for a healthy and happy homeworker? The employee, or the employer?

Organisation

Joris Larik, university lecturer at LUC, discusses in this interview with Al Jazeera the new trade and cooperation agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom.

Russian writer and cardiologist Maxim Osipov will come to the Netherlands for a year to teach in Leiden about Russian literature, his own work and the political situation in Russian.

On 28 August 2024, Lieke Beekers won the Young Economist Award 2024.

In the future top Dutch speed skaters may skate even faster thanks to a skate full of electronics. This ‘measuring skate’ gives top skaters and coaches information about the skater’s technique and motion. It can measure the dynamics at play between the foot, the ice and the skate.

At the EUFEPS Meeting in Vienna, Lianne Stevens and team received the EJPS – Best Paper Award 2024.

This is the eleventh time that the Moot Court Challenge Cup has been awarded! This time for best counsel in academic year 2022-2023.

Joris Larik, Assistant Professor at Leiden University College in The Hague, was interviewed live on Al Jazeera on 2 April 2021 about the current political upheaval in The Netherlands and the difficult process of forming a new government.

This was the tenth occasion that the Moot Court Challenge Cup has been awarded! This time for the best oral argument at the Moot Court held in the spring of academic year 2021-2022.

Rafał Matuszewski and Kim Beerden, both university lecturers in Ancient History, received a grant from The A.G. Leventis Foundation.

The Moot Court trophy has been awarded for the sixteenth time! This time, it went to the best pleader in the spring of the 2024-2025 academic year.

The Moot Court trophy has been awarded for the fourteenth time! This time, it went to the best pleader in the spring of the 2023-2024 academic year.

2021 was an eventful year once again for the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA). Hybrid, working from home, online education, on-campus education, face masks, self-tests, keeping distance, quarantine and the coronavirus. Words that have now become a standard part of our vocabulary when…

2025 was a year to remember at our faculty. We celebrated our 450th anniversary, launched new degree programmes and welcomed many inspiring speakers, yet we also felt the weight of budget constraints. Our year in a nutshell:

Staff Association

Last year, the Faculty of Humanities started organising onboarding afternoons, where new staff members can get to know each other. ‘All new staff members are welcome.’

CML grants three Stans Awards each year, known as the best student thesis, best PhD paper and best outreach from the past year. The CML staff nominated students and colleagues and this year’s jury Prof.dr.ing. Jan Willem Erisman and Prof.dr.ir Willie Peijnenburg made the final decision.

An impressive speech by Dean Jasper Knoester, a lecture by top researcher Mario van der Stelt about brain messengers, and the presentation of the faculty awards. 2025 begins on a hopeful and festive note, with a toast to a year of fruitful collaboration within and beyond the faculty.

Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker will retire on 8 February. If there’s one theme running through his career, it’s the links between the University and society. In this series of pre-retirement discussions, Stolker will talk one last time to people from within and without the University. This edition…

The opening of the new academic year highlighted students' and lecturers' personal motivators. Incoming students were encouraged to be bold, forge their own paths and grow by trial and error.

In December 2023, Louise van der Vlugt was announced as Co-Winner of the 'Best Thesis in Jewish Studies' Award. She sat down to answer some questions about her prize-winning BA Thesis.

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…

Two of the three nominees for the Leiden Education Prize, or best teacher of 2020-2021, work at FGGA: Els de Busser (ISGA) and Ayo Adedokun (LUC). Both lecturers are very honoured with their nomination. The winner will be announced on Monday 6 September during the opening of the academic year.

A tenacious postdoc researcher persuaded Professor Marc Koper to research the oxygen reduction reaction. In Koper's eyes, there was little of interest there. But they promptly discovered a whole new way to improve fuel cells on hydrogen and oxygen. Their article appeared in Nature Catalysis on 07 Ju…

What do you do when you get the chance to meet Nobel Prize winners in your field? You say ‘yes’, of course! Two young chemists from Leiden had the opportunity to attend the Nobel Laureate Meeting in Lindau, Germany. They share what the experience was like.