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…

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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…

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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…

ICT

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.

Lecture, Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series

Lecture, Lunch Research Seminar

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.

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.

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.

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…

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.

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.

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

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Facility

Lecture, Astronomy on Tap

If your work allows it, you can work partly from home and partly from a university location. How exactly this combination looks for you depends on your own work and that of your team.

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).

This section lists awards, scholarships and grants at FSW for which you can nominate/apply for yourself or another person.

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).

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Atte Ahola, who graduated last year from the bachelor’s programme in Urban Studies, has won the award for Best Undergraduate Thesis in Europe in the category of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the Global Undergraduate Awards 2025.

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