On Thursday, the 19th of March 2026, students and staff had the chance to partake in the second full-day workshop organized by the Leiden Center for the Study of Ancient Religions (L*CeSAR). This edition was centered on the role of the environment in relation to religion in antiquity.

Every year, Leiden University hosts the Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture to mark International Women’s Day. This year, historian Nadia Bouras will speak about academic freedom, class and being a woman in academia. And that is just as relevant to men, says lecturer and organiser Looi van Kessel.

In the sixteenth century, many Protestants fled to the Northern Netherlands to avoid Spanish oppression in the south. This exodus included tapestry makers from Oudenaarde who eventually settled in Gouda. Professor by Special Appointment Yvonne Bleyerveld and researcher Jos Beerens have been awarded…

The ambitions of the Dutch Recognition & Rewards programme are widely supported by academics at Leiden University. This is one of the findings from the first Culture Barometer survey, carried out in early 2024.

Well-being economist Rutger Hoekstra has been named as one of the 26 National Champions of the international Frontiers Planet Prize.

Protest is a human right and an important way to hold the authorities to account. But how does the right to protest relate to academic freedom and the right to education?

How can the voice of the education sector be better represented within the faculty? At the request of the Faculty Board, the Education Management and Organisation Task Force has been examining this question over the past few months. A detailed report has now been produced. Vice-Dean Jos Schaeken, who…

During a visit, Queen Máxima spoke with researchers about projects exploring climate change, collections and culinary heritage.

An important part of the Leiden Leadership Programme (LLP) is the practical assignment that students are given by a partner organisation. How does this benefit the organisations? Two Leiden partners talk about working with the students.

Organisation, Human resources

A lot is going on in the world right now, and our university regularly faces big issues and dilemmas too. Then it can be tricky to switch off. For me, exercise is a way to unwind. We want our staff to be able to relax too and are therefore offering various events and workshops that should help.

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.

Karen Smith recently joined the Institute for History as a lecturer in International Relations. She introduces herself.

Many humanities graduates find work in digital heritage, but a good pedagogical model to match education is lacking. University lecturers Karin de Wild and Peter Verhaar want to change this with a Comenius grant.

In a topping out ceremony on Thursday 30 January, the new sports centre celebrated reaching its highest point and looked ahead to the future. The university will have a spacious and sustainable sports building by the start of 2026.

Through its Demonstrator Projects, the Dutch Oncode Accelerator consortium provides grants for preclinical cancer therapy development. The first call for these projects is open until September 2025.

When are you (sexually) mature? A KNAW grant will enable associate professor Rafal Matuszewski to organise an interdisciplinary workshop on this question.

Last July saw the start of the new master programme Cosmopolis Advanced, an initiative of the Institute for History at Leiden University in partnership with Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Yogyakarta. The Cosmopolis Advanced programma, led by prof.dr. Jos Gommans and coordinator dr. Lennart Bes, provides…

On 11 July 2024, a gathering was held to celebrate the start of the construction of the new University Sports Centre (USC). Rugby players and a pole dancer from USC Leiden played a role in the celebration. A video was also shown, giving a whistle-stop tour of the new building.

Three Leiden researchers have been awarded a prestigious Vici grant, the Dutch Research Council (NWO) announced on Tuesday. Two of the researchers work at Leiden University and the third at the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC).

A KIEM grant was recently awarded to a diverse group of Leiden researchers, aiming to organise an interdisciplinary conference with the title ‘Ancient Religions and the Materiality of Danger’ in 2026. The topic of the conference marks a shift towards the study of the role of objects.

Work has begun on an accommodation complex for international PhD candidates and postdocs at the Leiden Bio Science Park.

Eight university vegetable patches will soon join the display at the Hortus botanicus. The sun shone down on almost 40 enthusiastic students and staff as they started work on the new Community Garden there earlier this month.

These are turbulent times at Dutch universities. We have all seen what has been and is still happening at various campuses in the country. Protests, demonstrations, occupations. Situations and scenes that deeply affect us all.

Abuse of power, sexually transgressive behaviour and non-funny jokes: they all came up in the stage show Mindlab, which was performed at the end of September to get staff of the Faculty of Humanities to talk about undesirable and transgressive behaviour.

How do you set up successful interdisciplinary collaborations? That is the central question of a triptych of Leiden symposia in 2024. The final part, on 6 June, looks at cooperation and decompartmentalisation between public institutions. In addition, there will be information on the new round of Kiem…

On Tuesday 25 November, Leiden University is holding the first of four sessions on ‘Building Academic Freedom’. Students and staff are invited to a conversation about today’s hot-button issues.

On Tuesday 27 May a first meeting was held in response to the demonstration and occupation at the Wijnhaven building on 6 May. The aim was to explore how the university can balance the fundamental right to protest with ensuring a safe environment for all students and staff.

Fanny Wonu Veys was appointed Professor of Art and Material Culture of Oceania on 1 August. Time for an introduction.

Is your strategic vote actually strategic? How can the Netherlands form a stable government? And what should the next government do about migration, defence and the housing crisis? This is what our experts have to say.

Met een openingswoord, een paneldiscussie op de Spaanse Trappen in Wijnhaven en een druk op de rode knop voor het gebouw zelf, is POPcorner The Hague donderdagmiddag officieel geopend door rector magnificus Hester Bijl.

Salvador Santino Regilme has been selected for a fellowship at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) in Amsterdam. From September 2022, he will spend 5 months at NIAS working on his research project titled 'The Normative Order of the Global War on Drugs'.

A fresh semester means a fresh faculty calendar. There is plenty to do at the faculty again in the coming months. Five interesting activities are listed below.

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…

Since 1 October 2022, Suzan Abozyid is a PhD-candidate at the Institute for History. Below she introduces herself.

Professor Jenny Doetjes has received an NWO grant to research the cross-linguistic properties of quantity expressions and our brain's influence on language.

Leiden University’s Board of Governors is pleased to announce the appointment of Tjerk Kroes to the Board of Governors by the outgoing Minister of Education, Culture and Science, Gouke Moes.

The lecture halls in the Lipsius were full of curious secondary school students in January. During a special profile selection afternoon, they were introduced to the faculty and language studies. ‘I had no idea that Hebrew and Arabic were similar.’

From research on the first human ancestors to leave Africa to mathematical models in random disturbances. For Leiden researchers have been awarded a prestigious Vici grant by the Dutch Research Council.

Researchers from Leiden have developed a promising TB vaccine that users can self-administer via a special patch. This could be beneficial for countries with limited health services, says PhD candidate Malene Neustrup.

If we continue with our current policies, the Faculty of Humanities will face a financial shortfall in 2024 and subsequent years. The Perspective 2028 Steering Committee, led by Manon van der Heijden, has been established to advise on potential measures that can be taken to improve the financial sit…

Marjolijn joined Leiden University in June as Policy Adviser on Healthy University and Staff Absence. She is passionate about healthy living and is pleased to be able to draw on this in her work. She is currently hard at work on the preparations for Healthy University Week, which will be from 31 October…

The Leiden University Centre for the Study of Religion (LUCSoR) and the Beheerstichting Theologische Fondsen hand out two thesis prizes each year, one for the best bachelor thesis and one for the best master thesis.

From a vegan community kitchen to a green framework for drug development: sustainability became more visible in everyday campus life at Leiden University in 2025.

Historian Paul van Trigt and Arabist Peter Webb have been awarded Consolidator Grants by the European Research Council (ERC). This grant of up to two million euros will allow them to consolidate their research team or programme.

On Thursday 30 May, Leiden University hosts a workshop to foster collaborations to improve the governance of European textile waste export. Different stakeholders, including municipalities, associations of textile collectors and sorters, industry and consumers associations, are warmly invited to join…

There was a time when student Lelani Antar wanted to go to film school. She ended up studying International Studies, yet she didn’t quite say goodbye to film. For her minor, she and three other students made an essay film.

Education, Organisation

In September 2022, Ruben Ros started working at the Institute for History as a PhD candidate. Below he introduces himself!