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.

What will happen if the lights in a large part of the city are switched off? How many stars can you see without all that light pollution? This is what researchers, artists and the residents of Leiden are going to investigate during Seeing Stars Leiden on 25 September. ‘Leiden is the ideal place for…

Organisation, Research

The League of European Research Universities (LERU) was launched in Leiden 20 years ago. LERU is a partnership of 23 leading research universities, including the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Leiden, Leuven and Heidelberg. It celebrated this anniversary last week with a multi-day conference in…

Workshops, tours, talks, music, an AI photobooth, interviews, a special poem and the launch of the LUF Children’s Fund. Alumni celebrated their alma mater’s 450th birthday in style on Saturday at the massively oversubscribed Dies Natalis Festival.

Ward Hoskens started ten years ago as an intern at one of Leiden's most iconic buildings: the Pieterskerk. Now he is doing his PhD on the question of how the function of this 'church that is no longer a church' changed over recent centuries.

Do you also love a city where nature can bloom, crawl and flutter freely and exuberantly? And do you fancy a challenge out in the fresh air? If so, grab your mobile and take part in the BioBlitz 'Higher Education is Flourishing' from 22 May.

Together with students and local residents, historians Ariadne Schmidt and Alicia Schrikker researched the Leiden Transvaal neighbourhood. They will present their findings on Thursday 20 October, at a specially organised mini-festival in the neighbourhood.

Within the scope of Leiden European City of Science, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) presented the quadrennial Lorentz Medal to Daan Frenkel in the Academy Building yesterday. The ceremony was in collaboration with the Lorentz Center and was attended by Robbert Dijkgraaf, Minister…

Around 1,300 Leideners found 2,265 species during the Expeditie Stadsnutuur urban biodiversity inventory. ‘It’s been a huge success’, says scientific coordinator Frederic Lens.

On Friday 11 March (16.00 hrs.) Minister Dijkgraaf (Education, Culture and Science) will give a speech at Leiden University entitled ‘When knowledge becomes critical’. In the speech, he will address several critical challenges in science and society. The livestream will be open to all.

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…

Lecture

Back to university to attend lectures with master's students: that's what professionals did at the Leiden Leadership Programme. Conclusion of the experiment? Learning about leadership leaves one wanting more. 'Great that this is possible.'

Bringing the community together, doing up the community centre or researching how to make gardens greener. Students now have a base in Leiden-Noord where they can work with local residents and partner organisations to make the city a better place to live. It was the official opening of ‘Learning with…

Library, Research

One of the largest roofs at Leiden University, that of the Snellius building, has recently been equipped with 590 solar panels and 57,000 sedum plants, making it the largest combined roof in the Benelux. The roof was officially opened on Monday 10 October by Annetje Ottow and Martijn Ridderbos, President…

From a powerful documentary to a heartwarming classic: four Leiden alumni have chosen their favourite films and will introduce them at Leiden International Film Festival.

Building a sustainable, international and interdisciplinary consortium for developing evidence-based communication strategies about Antimicrobial Resistance. That is the objective of a new project between researchers from Leiden University, VU Amsterdam and Stellenbosch University in South Africa, made…

Covid-19 has had a huge impact on teaching at universities over the past two years. Through force of circumstances, lecturers have adapted much faster to a digital future. On 7 June Leiden Teachers Academy’s annual Education Festival (working language is English) will present insights on this ‘new n…

Using enslaved people as servants, becoming an administrator in the Dutch West India Company or making uniforms for the colonial army. Many people from Leiden played a role in colonialism and slavery. Historians are conducting preliminary research and finding striking examples.

Young Academy Leiden (YAL) will change its board this month and welcome seven new members. Outgoing chair Julia Cramer and incoming chair Rachel Plak look back at the highlights of the past year and discuss YAL’s plans for the coming period.

The tenth International Conference on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and the Pacific will be a special edition with a focus on reconciliation. The fatal shooting in 1722 will be remembered, when the Dutch shot and killed ten Easter Islanders. The conference will be held in Leiden from 19 to 24 June.

Bird, butterfly, fish: when you look through a children’s book, you usually don’t think about the fact that humans divided these animals, depicted in bright colours, into categories. Yet, this division has been discussed for centuries. In her PhD dissertation, Didi van Trijp shows how natural scientists…

Natalia Sobrino-Saeb has attended the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony in Oslo. She was awarded this honour after winning the essay competition of the Nobel Ignitor Fellowship, a programme that seeks to inspire young changemakers around the world – for change can be made by all of us: “You never know…

Interfacultary lunch

Young Academy Leiden (YAL) will change its board this month and welcome six new members. Outgoing chair Rachel Plak and incoming chair Ahmed Mahfouz talk about what the platform has achieved for young academics over the past year and what the plans are for the future.

The Young Academy Leiden (YAL) acquired six new members on 1 September. We talked to the new and former chair of this platform for young academics about what they have achieved over the recent period and what is on the agenda for the coming year.

Researchers, civil servants and local residents met on 27 September to talk about partnering for sustainability. What were the results? In a green ‘city oasis’ in the centre of The Hague they spoke about the energy transition, bottom-up initiatives and citizen science.

Didactics, Working effectively, ICT

Collaborating in drug discovery and health research was the goal of a visit to the Leiden Bio Science Park on 14 May by a Swedish delegation including His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustav of Sweden. The delegation visited Leiden University’s Faculty of Science.

The League of European Research Universities (LERU) was launched in Leiden 20 years ago. This anniversary will be celebrated with a major conference (19 – 21 May) on an urgent theme: How does science contribute to sustainable and resilient societies? We put this question to Kurt Deketelaere, Secretary-General…

The Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW) has appointed four Leiden professors as members. Petra Sijpesteijn, Vanessa Mak, Mariska Kret and Miranda van Eck have recently joined the KHMW.

After a long night of partying, hundreds of people head to Leiden’s Van der Werfpark early on 3 October for a good singsong. Lecturer in Dutch literature Olga van Marion helped compile the new songbook for the occasion. Which songs were left out and which new hits have taken their place?

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 Rogier Creemers comments on CNN on the launch of the new artificial intelligence tool Sundance 2.0.

Workshop

Workshop

Didactics, Working effectively, ICT

From forwarding promising calls and arranging budgets to assisting in legal issues and keeping track of important deadlines: to associate professor Roxanne Kieltyka, the research support offered by project managers Inge Rietveld en Christina Schlüpen is fundamental. ‘The combination of our expertise…

Workshop

Workshop

How do our researchers and support professionals work together to ensure that groundbreaking innovations from the lab are given a place in society? Professor Huub de Groot and business developer Serkan Esiner share their experiences on collaborating within an EU-funded project that focuses on converting…