Organisation

As of 1 September Miranda van Eck will be the new Scientific Director of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research. She succeeds Hubertus Irth, who led the institute since 2016. Van Eck has been appointed for a period of four years.

Cora van Nieuwenhuizen (VVD) has resigned as Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management with immediate effect. She has decided to take up a position outside politics and will become chair of the lobby organisation for the energy sector, Energie Nederland.

Professor Michiel Kreutzer, Dean of the Faculty of Science at Leiden University, will move to Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) on 1 May. Alongside his professorship, he will focus on university initiatives in the field of innovation in education.

Hundreds of students and staff from Leiden University gave a ‘whistle concert’ on 11 December against the planned cuts to higher education. Similar protests were held in other student cities on the same day.

Library, Research

The Teaching Fair is coming up again. On Thursday afternoon, 20 June, you can let your colleagues inspire you about educational innovation. In the workshop ‘No more boring lectures’, Jasmijn Mioch will show you how to incorporate interactive workshops in your lectures.

Finance

Assistant Professor Mike Schmidli has won the 2025 Faculty Teaching Prize. The Education Committee praised his commitment not only to teaching students well, but also to helping them develop into well-rounded individuals.

We have all been deeply affected by the events that took place in Rotterdam on Thursday evening. Our colleagues at Erasmus Medical Center and Erasmus University have lost a valued colleague and have been involved in a very serious incident, which will undoubtedly leave deep scars. The witnesses to this…

Merei Huigsloot will be appointed as the new head of the Education Office of LACDR from September 1. She will be responsible for the organisation and coordination of all education-related activities for the bachelor programme Bio-Farmaceutische Wetenschappen and master programme Bio-Pharmaceutical S…

An independent panel recently conducted an Institutional Audit (ITK) of Leiden University. It assessed whether our quality assurance and quality culture are organised in such a way as to realise our educational vision and goals. Its initial conclusions? Leiden University easily meets all the standards…

Linda Holtman

Organisation

Playing a game, picking a cutting for your room or just having a cup of coffee: it is all possible in the new Humanities Living Room in the Matthias de Vrieshof. From Wednesday 17 May, staff and students will be able to meet informally and socialise here.

From 22 to 24 October, researchers of the MARBLES-project informed museum visitors about microbes: bacteria and fungi that live all around us. The event was organised around the Micro-day of Leiden, which is this year’s EU City of Science.

Organisation

Education, Research

This year's RISE Award goes to emeritus professor Jetty Kleijn (LIACS). According to the board of RISE, Kleijn has dedicated herself in the past years to gender equality within LIACS and the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. It is the first time since the introduction of the award in 2018…

The fact-checking initiative Nieuwscheckers has won the Dutch round of the European Citizens Award. This prize is awarded annually to projects and initiatives that deliver an exceptional performance within the EU.

Prof. Suzan Stoter will be the Dean of Leiden Law School at Leiden University as of 1 January 2024. The Leiden University Executive Board has appointed her for a period of four years. Stoter succeeds Joanne van der Leun, who, together with the other members of the Faculty Board, brought great verve…

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) appointed Professor Thomas Bäck as an IEEE Fellow in the class of 2022. Bäck is becoming a Fellow for his contributions in synthesising evolutionary computation. Less than 0.1% of voting members are selected each year for this member grade…

Suzanne van der Pluijm will be appointed Executive Director and Member of the Board of the Faculty of Science with effect from 1 June 2022. She succeeds Ed van den Berg, who has held this position on an interim basis since 1 September 2021 .

ICT

Facility, Organisation

Facility

How the TikTok account came across his publication remains a mystery to researcher Martín Hernán Di Marco. But he is well aware that his work has gone viral. The video has now been viewed five million times and shared more than 100,000 times.

Facility

2023 was a busy year for the faculty. Many colleagues won awards and important progress was made on the Kernvisie. We said farewell to the previous Faculty Board and welcomed our new Interim Board. All this and lots more. Watch the video below for an overview of 2023 in a nutshell.

ICT, Organisation

K-pop is wildly popular. Fans all over the world sing along to the Korean songs, often without understanding exactly what the lyrics mean. University lecturer Mirae Kim explains why these songs are so difficult to translate in the video series "The World of Korean Wave'.

ICT

Education

Terracotta pottery, precious ikat fabrics and the bazaars where these goods are sold: all these can be seen in a new Louvre film premiering on Friday 9 December. University lecturer Elena Paskaleva collaborated on the film Uzbekistan a timeless journey in Central Asia about Uzbek artefacts.

'Let's make this a twice-yearly tradition!'– a feeling shared by many after the vibrant Research Day. Engagement started early, with participants connecting informally over good coffee before the formal start of the event on 19 November.

What do you do if you want to reach the widest possible consensus on a decision, ensuring it represents all the feelings and ideas within your team? The Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) tried the Deep Democracy method. It proved successful: ‘Everyone had a say without us getting stuck…

Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Associate Professor at eLaw, presented his work on ‘Aligning rules and actions in digital innovation’ at the conference on Technology and Sustainable Development, This event explored whether technology can be used to fix the very problems caused by technology, encompassing social,…

Nadine Akkerman, associate professor of early modern English literature is receiving the Dr Hendrik Muller Prize 2021 for her work.

Would you like to take concrete steps toward a sustainable university or do you have a broad interest in sustainability? Over 200 staff members have already joined the Leiden University Sustainability Network. And there is always room for more – even if you’re no expert on sustainability, says project…

Beads are among the oldest types of human artistic expression. Even so, the small ornaments have a bad status record regarding archaeological investigation. PhD candidate Mette Langbroek, usually at home studying early medieval beads, had the opportunity to work on a publication and exhibition on 5000…

An open academic culture, where quality beats quantity, where science and society are closely linked and where we recognise and reward everyone’s contribution is the aim of the university-wide Academia in Motion (AiM) programme.

PhD candidate Karen van den Akker has written a children’s book to get young girls excited about technology. The picture book ‘Met mama naar Mars’ tells the story of Luna, who wants to travel to Mars.

Izra ter Weer's mother had studied English Language and Culture in Leiden and was always so enthusiastic about her studies that Izra decided to follow in her footsteps. After completing a Master's degree in Linguistics, she now works as a consultant at strategic consultancy firm Sprenkels and organises…

Organisation

Costume dramas would have us believe that women in the Middle Ages became mothers at a much younger age than they do today. University lecturer Krista Milne wants to refute this image with the help of an NWO XS grant. ‘In the past, not all data was taken into account.’

Education, Research

Over 600 manuscripts and early prints have been made digitally available by Leiden University Libraries (UBL) via the Europeana platform. In the project 'The Art of Reading in the Middle Ages’ (ARMA), seven European heritage institutions added 30,000 digitised medieval items to Europeana’s database…