It has become tradition: the opening of the faculty year in the Hortus Botanicus. This year, too, staff and students of the Faculty of Humanities gathered in the botanical garden on the first Wednesday of September to raise a glass to the new academic year.

This year too, the faculty year was opened in the Hortus Botanicus. In the centuries-old garden, staff and students met with drinks and snacks.

Over a century ago, Alexandra van Elroy's great-grandfather left for Japan, where her grandmother was born. Together with her mother, Maaike van der Loon, she reminisces about her family history, through which a key thread is the study of Japanese and Chinese.

The Faculty of Humanities has made a festive start to the academic year. On 7 September, staff members were able to meet each other at a drinks party in the Hortus botanicus.

It was pouring with rain during the Opening of the Faculty Year, but in the Oranjerie, Dean Henk te Velde had a positive message for those present: the faculty is in better financial shape than expected, and a reorganisation is therefore off the table.

LEGO creations, a clothesline of visions and a journey into the past and the future: just some of the highlights of Uni-vision day, where creatives developed their vision of the future of study.

The University pays out salaries on pre-determined dates. Additionally, the holiday allowance is paid out in May and the end-of-year bonus is paid out in November.

GROW: Conversations on Performance, Development and Well-being (Gesprekken over Resultaat, Ontwikkeling en Welzijn). The new GROW interviews offer an opportunity to speak openly with each other about your work, development and well-being.

For a 38-hour week you have 232 vacation hours per year. If you make use of the flexible hours option, you will have more or fewer vacation hours. If you work part-time, your vacation credit is proportionate to your contracted hours. If you are in salary scale 11 or above, you may choose to conclude…

For the fifth year in succession, on the foundation day of the university, Leiden professors taught a lesson at primary schools as part of the ‘Meet the Professor’ programme.

Leiden University wants to attract the best academics. What requirements does it set for new academic staff members? What requirements must you meet for a career in academia? Read more about our career policy for academic staff.

If you wish, you can take part in the collective health insurance scheme offered by Leiden University and Zorg en Zekerheid. This scheme offers a collective discount, for you and your family.

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

175 years ago, the Netherlands took great strides towards parliamentary democracy with a revamped Constitution. Where does the Constitution stand today?

Paul Gobée (LUMC), Kirsty Rolfe (Humanities) and Frank Takes (Science) have been nominated for the Leiden Teaching Prize 2023.

On 14 May, curator and professor Ruurd Halbertsma will be leaving the National Museum of Antiquities (RMO) after forty years of dedicated service. In fact, it will be a double farewell: Venusval (‘Venus trap’), the last part of his trilogy about Tjalling Kingma, the fictional curator of the classical…

This year marks a special occasion because it was just ten years ago that the Georgian language was taught for the first time at Leiden University. It is even more exciting that its first professor, Ramaz Kurdadze, will return to Leiden this year to teach students interested in the language. Kurdadze…

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…

In exactly 450 days’ time, on 8 February 2025, it is the university’s 450th anniversary. We are obviously going to celebrate this with our students, staff and friends. Do you have any ideas for this celebration?

The number of women in the Netherlands dying before, during or after childbirth has halved.

Education

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…

Alumni event, Lustrum

The Schoof cabinet has presented its budget. As expected, higher education is facing severe cuts. In the coming period, the Executive Board will regularly look at the consequences of what it deems an irresponsible policy.

Students in the third year of the BA International Studies programme follow the Practicing International Studies (PRINS) consultancy course. They conduct a project put forward by real clients and then present them with their research results. PRINS is so successful that it has now been running for 10…

Lecture, Annual Leiden Terra Incognita Lecture

The Grand Parade was a festive highlight of the 450th anniversary celebration of 3 October. Students and staff members from Leiden University participated with an impressive float.

It is exactly one year ago that the university had to close, bang in the middle of the academic year. Suddenly, on that third Monday in March, we found ourselves at home, working and studying online – many of us from that cramped attic or student room. The momentous coronavirus year in pictures.

They first entered the Academy Building fifty to sixty years ago. On 28 March, they were back for an afternoon: the members of the Dr Pfiffikus debating society of the German Studies programme. Former chair Hans van der Veen looks back on his student days.

Lecture

The World Food Programme, Philips, the European Space Agency. An overwhelming list of organisations that Sarita Koendjbiharie, as founder of the PRINS consultancy programme of International Studies, has managed to recruit. ‘We keep reaching new highs and insights together with our students and organ…