After one bachelor’s and two master's theses, Fenna IJtsma knew for sure: she wanted to do a PhD. Her thesis supervisor warned her about the high workload. In the 'Twijfeltraject' (PhD: to do or not to do) podcast, published by Mare, IJtsma explores with Mare editor Susan Wichgers whether a PhD track…

The new Students for Leiden party pulled off a stunning victory in the municipal elections. From nowhere, the party won two seats on Leiden Municipal Council. How are brand-new student councillors Mitchell Wiegand Bruss and Elianne Wijnands doing? ‘We’ve already asked questions about the quality of…

Excursions to Leiden museums, a flown-in American professor and a collaboration with PhD students from Cambridge: Leiden PhD candidates in early modern art were in luck this summer. An award from the Camino Laurent van Vugt Fund allowed the LUCAS research institute to organise a special summer school…

Starting this academic year, the regular Performance and Development interview (ROG) has for academic staff been replaced by an annual interview. A survey will be held in early December to evaluate this pilot.

Organisation

Social impact is becoming increasingly important for researchers. On Thursday, Nov. 17, the Faculty of Humanities is organizing Engaging Humanities - Exploring Impact: a day all about impact.

Organisation, Human resources

The PhD track involves many different aspects. As well as important administrative steps that you have to take, for example, there are also introductory activities, a training programme and opportunities for research abroad.

Many students dream of running their own business. But where to start? The Master Honours Challenge ‘Entrepreneurship’ helps students figure things out. ‘Now I can actually go for it.’

With ongoing protests across Iran, many are asking whether the regime is on the brink of collapse. Three Leiden experts share their perspectives.

The Faculty Club has specific terms and conditions for orders and cancellations, and the general terms and conditions of UFB Catering also apply. Please inform the Faculty Club of any cancellations or changes in good time

Good education starts with good educators. The university has taken various steps in recent years to help our teaching staff develop. But new teaching staff require particular attention, say staff who work on teacher professionalisation.

Associate professor Eric Storm’s book on nationalism has been reviewed in several newspapers. Storm was also interviewed by newspaper Ara.

Associate professor Eric Storm’s book on nationalism has been reviewed in two Spanish newspapers. Three newspaper published interviews with Storm.

Since 1 February 2016, Paul van Trigt is postdoctoral researcher in the project Rethinking Disability: the Impact of the International Year of Disabled Persons (1981) in Global Perspective at the Institute for History.

This summer, Leiden University will be setting up camp at Lowlands with two research projects. Participants are invited to explore their fears and feelings, and in doing so, contribute to scientific research.

Studenten blijven tevreden over hun opleiding en docenten, maar studentenwelzijn en de aansluiting op de arbeidsmarkt blijven belangrijke aandachtspunten.

Expert in Classics Renske Janssen has been awarded a Rubicon grant. She will use the grant to conduct research at the University of Edinburgh into how Roman law was perceived by society at the time.

Leiden University’s Executive Board has appointed Erwin Muller as Vice Rector of Organisational Development. In this role, he will help further professionalise and improve the university’s organisation as per the Strategic Plan.

Most young alumni who graduated during the COVID-19 pandemic did not get a graduation ceremony, nor did they have the chance to sign their name in the Sweat Room. Thanks to the Alumni Office, they now have the chance to do so after all.

A tour, presentations, drinks, and a quiz: new employees were warmly welcomed at the first faculty onboarding session. On a Thursday afternoon, they got to know the faculty.

Debate

It was his thesis supervisor during his master's in Film and Photographic Studies who encouraged Shivan Shazad to pursue a second master's in diversity policy at Ghent. He is now Manager of Diversity and Inclusion at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

Lecture, Book talk

In the Netherlands, people probably grew up with De Fabeltjeskrant (a children’s show, ed.), but in France an introduction to fables plays a much more important role in a child's upbringing. PhD candidate Céline Zaepffel studied the role of fables in French education and teaching methods. It turns out…

Over the past weeks, thousands of students from Leiden University have filled in the National Student Survey (NSE). To thank them, the university is donating €3,637.75 to #wakeuptocorona.

NATO not only safeguards our security and stability, but also defends Enlightenment principles, promoting prosperity, health and freedom. This is what eminent psychologist and thinker Steven Pinker argued to a packed Great Auditorium.

The AI chatbot ChatGPT has a clear left-liberal bias when filling in the Stemwijzer voting advice application. This was discovered by master's student Merel van den Broek during an assignment for the Machine Learning for Natural Language Processing course.

The speed at which science is changing our lives gives rise to tensions and concerns. In his talk at Leiden University, Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf (Education, Culture and Science) said we should talk more about science’s relationship with society and political decision-making.

The results of the Personnel Monitor 2022 are out. Now the ball is in all of our courts. What does the Monitor tell us and how can we act on it? I hope that as an organisation we can get a good dialogue going as the first step towards improvement.

Research into our history of colonialism and slavery, heart-to-heart conversations at a Keti Koti table, exhibitions, lectures and podcasts that establish the link between present and past. Staff and students participated in the national Slavery Memorial Year in many different ways. What have we learned…

Neanderthals were able to outwit straight-tusked elephants, the largest land mammals of the past few million years. Leiden professor Wil Roebroeks has published an article about this together with his German colleague Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser in the Science Advances journal.

Just imagine new AI technology is able to read human emotions flawlessly. How would that affect us as humans? That is the question PhD candidate Alexandra Prégent is exploring.

Would you like to share your expertise with a wide audience, and in a very convenient way? The Vraag het Leiden (Ask Leiden) video platform is looking for academics who can answer questions sent in by the general public, both young and old, by recording short videos.

With its FestivOWL theme, Orientation Week Leiden (OWL) promises to be one big festival for new international students in Leiden.

Over 40 hard-working programme directors and chairs met for the first time in the Academy Building on 27 October to exchange knowledge and experience and gain new inspiration. Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl opened the meeting with an update on strategic developments in higher education.

What sets Leiden University apart from other universities? And what research themes would you like us to showcase to the outside world? Share your ideas in our online consultation over the next two weeks.

Leiden University and Stadslab Leiden invite you to improve the Leiden and The Hague environment with 450 extra trees – a living reminder of 450 years since the Relief of Leiden and the foundation of Leiden University.

After seven months of hard work, the participants in the Research Traineeship Programme concluded their research on Friday 2 September with a pitch and a poster presentation.

Study information

University Lecturer in History and International Studies Andrew Gawthorpe discusses on The Conversation the newly signed US-Ukraine economic partnership agreement.

During the first weekend of October, a group of fourteen Master of Arts in European Union Studies alumni returned to the place it all began, 15 years after graduating from Leiden University. The international group, representing the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Belgium and…

Leiden University has secured an impressive 12 European exchange grants. This is good news for students, lecturers and researchers from home and abroad.

If you had something important to write down in ancient times, you would usually write in Greek in the eastern Mediterranean. University lecturer Joanne Stolk has been awarded an ERC grant to explore the kinds of spelling mistakes that were made in these scripts. And, more importantly, what improvements…

Postdoc and linguist Evelyn Bosma receives the Keetje Hodshon Prize for her dissertation. For her research on the multilingualism of Frisian children, Bosma previously won the Klokhuis Science Prize and the Campus Fryslân Science Prize.

Are you curious about how the human skeleton works? Discover this and more on 3 October in Leiden and on 4 October in The Hague.

As University historian, Pieter Slaman researches the University’s past, but he’s equally interested in its present. ‘It’s useful to be familiar with issues from the past. Not to be rooted in the past because some developments from history are things you definitely don’t want to repeat.’

In dermatology, there should be a high level of multidisciplinary collaboration among institutes and specialists, Professor of Translational Dermatology, Robert Rissmann, will say in his inaugural lecture on 8 July. He is building an infrastructure that will put pre-clinical and clinical skin research…

On the eve of Leiden University’s 450th anniversary, the 1574th and 1575th Honours College students received their honours certificates. In a crowded Scheltema, people celebrated ‘that so many students have had the opportunity to broaden their horizons.’

As from April 2023 all students at Leiden University, Delft University of Technology and Erasmus University Rotterdam will start using the eduXchange portal to register for a minor.