A safe place to discuss burning social issues such as racism with each other. The student workspace Space to Talk About Race and the Afro Student Association both meet this need and also organise many other activities. Three board members explain why this is necessary.

A flood of news reports, push notifications and even extra news broadcasts: on Wednesday, the world was shocked by the storming of the Capitol in Washington. Americanist Sara Polak discusses the events.

What are the main trends in family life today? Three stand out: young adults living with their parents for longer, people delaying parenthood and widening inequality between families. How did these trends emerge, and what are their consequences? Leiden experts explain.

For a workplace where social safety is self-evident.

Facility

Diversity

Grotius Dialogue

Festival, Study trip Greek and Roman History 2026

Welcome to Working Better Together. Our aim is to help you create a better work-life balance, get more job satisfaction and collaborate smartly online.

Students at research universities and universities of applied sciences are positive about their lecturers’ expertise and the atmosphere within their programmes. Almost one-third report experiencing excessive academic pressure. These are the findings of the 2026 National Student Survey.

Conference

As a teacher you are expected to provide and sign the results obtained by your students. Please follow the instructions below for smooth processing by the Science Student Administration:

Hybrid teaching combines face-to-face teaching on campus with online attendance: some students are present in class, while others join remotely at the same time via a livestream.

The purpose of writing a script is to create a visually engaging storyline for the video. Depending on the extent of the video production, your text can be quite simple or written-out in detail. Filming in a studio or on location with a videomaker usually means you need to translate your story into…

From 2026-2027, the Faculty of Humanities will add a new core curriculum course to its education: Humanities in a Digital World. The new course will prepare all students for their role as humanities specialists in the digital society. The course has been developed by experts from different study programmes…

Making use of social media is a good way to meet others or to hear about the latest news and developments. But it also has its downsides: disinformation, trolling, disrespectful comments and even the misuse of (personal) data.

Lars Brummel explains in The Conversation that Rutte is a good candidate to counter threats to NATO's cohesion.

Sebastian Diessner, assistant professor at the Institute of Public Administration, has won a grant from the Leverhulme Fund together with three researchers from the United Kingdom. The grant, worth 350,000 euros, is for the research project: 'The Political Economy of Knowledge-Based Growth.'

Organisation

The British astronomer and mathematician Edmond Halley was not, after all, the first to understand the cycle of the comet that now bears his name. This is shown by research conducted by, among others, Professor Simon Portegies Zwart. It was the monk Eilmer of Malmesbury who, as early as the 11th century,…

PhD student Janine Westendorp and her colleagues conducted literature research on what patients with cancer and their loved ones perceive as harmful communication from healthcare providers. The results were published in the journal Psycho-Oncology and are released as a poster to distribute to healthcare…

Library, Security

Nationalism is so prevalent in our society that we hardly realise it once didn’t exist. In his new book, senior university lecturer Eric Storm reveals the global history of the phenomenon. ‘Nationalist movements have always influenced each other.’

‘We want to say something very different from the norm. We are the radicals now.’ Tahir Abbas is lyric about the DRIVE project he will be leading from Leiden University in The Hague. This is a short introduction to the research that will be carried out in the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and the United…

Violence such as assault or head-butting causes pain, shock and distress. It is often seen as savage or senseless. But for those who commit it, violence has meaning, argues violence researcher Don Weenink in his inaugural lecture.

When moving to the Netherlands, it is important to know whether you are considered resident tax payer or non-resident. Both residents and non-residents are taxed on their taxable income. A number of criteria help determine your status as resident or non-resident.

The Terms of Employment Individual Choices Model gives you some freedom to select your own terms and conditions.

POPcorner The Hague has become a familiar and trusted space at Leiden University in The Hague. It’s where students meet, find support and work together to build an open and approachable student community.

Anne Land has been working at Science Communication & Society — the department that researches and teaches science communication — for fourteen years. What makes her work special? ‘That moment when students suddenly realise: this is exactly what I want to do.’

‘It was the biggest bunch of flowers I’d ever seen,’ says Emily Strange about the moment she won the Leiden Teaching Prize 2022. The judge praised the conservation biologist for her passion, engaging personality, and the way she motivates her students. On the Dutch Day of the Teacher, we get to know…

How do classroom demonstration experiments help students learn chemical reasoning? Marie-Jetta den Otter, PhD student at ICLON, researched this. She defends her thesis on 6 December.

Maartje van der Woude, Professor of Law and Society, has been included in the Leiden Top50 of 2022. The list includes women who stand out because they make a difference in the city. The Top50 was announced on 8 March, International Women’s Day.

Chinese athletes must perform this Olympics. Anything less than a gold is being seen as athletes being unpatriotic by furious nationalists online. Florian Schneider, director of the Leiden Asia Centre, explains the situation on BBC News.

Alumnus Jelte Liemburg, aged 29, aims to visit every single one of the 500 museums in the Netherlands that take part in the national museum pass scheme.

Racism and discrimination come in many different shapes and forms – in the Netherlands too. Verbal attacks, stereotypes and violence: some people are confronted with these on a daily basis. A group that is often not included in research and the debate on racism is people of Asian descent. The Diversity…

Legal protection. What do those involved in youth care and child protection understand by this concept? And what needs to change to improve legal protection? This question was explored by researchers from Leiden University’s Department of Child Law. Their research fits with the government’s ambition…

That Tessa Schiethart finished her bachelor's degree in International Studies with a thesis on Indonesian women's reasons for veiling was a coincidence. Or so she thought. Six years later, her book Seeing and Being Seen, in which she writes about her life with a wine stain and vision loss, is in the…

Leiden researchers from different disciplines look together at complex social problems. What happens when they join forces with artists? The results could be seen on Tuesday 11 June during a unique exhibition. Take a look for yourself:

For over a year now, the James Webb Telescope has been sending stunning images that exceed astronomers’ expectations. The photos are fascinating to see, but what exactly are we looking at? Assistant professor Melissa McClure explains.

The norms, institutions and power relations that have defined the last decades of international political and economic relations in the European Union are undergoing major transformations. With the return of competition between great and ambitious powers, like the US, China, EU and Russia, the need…

Professor Joanita Vroom, together with the Royal Netherlands Institute in Rome (KNIR) offered the course Byzantine Rome in September 2023. The course, co-taught by Vroom, Letty ten Harkel and various guest lecturers, investigated the transition of the city of Rome from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages,…

Bob de Brabandere discovered his deep passion for cinema through a minor in Film and Theatre Studies. He currently serves as Assistant Manager at Bioscopen Leiden and as a programmer for the Leiden International Film Festival, which commences on 9 October.

Are all murderers calculating psychopaths with an obscene predilection for bloody chainsaws? Yes, if Hollywood is to be believed, but in the real world they are generally everyday people with problematic backgrounds. Professor of Violence and Interventions Marieke Liem therefore calls for the demythologisation…

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.

At Leiden University College, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer urged Europe to show unity and strength in a world defined by fear, power politics, and uncertainty.

The journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society – Biological Sciences published its theme issue ‘Conflict across taxa’ on 4 April, which was edited by Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology Carsten de Dreu. Together with researchers from other disciplines he provides more insight…

Democracy is under pressure all over the world. With the #DemocracyinAction project, university lecturers Sara Brandellero and Kamila Krakowska Rodrigues want to investigate how grassroots art projects manage to keep democracy alive.

That it was students who started the protests in China against its zero Covid policy makes things more dangerous for politicians. China expert Frank Pieke explains the role of students in China, what makes the protests unique and what might happen next.

Leiden's cultural anthropologist Anouk de Koning is receiving a Vici research grant for her project ‘Prototyping Welfare in Europe: Experiments in State and Society’ to study welfare experiments in four countries and to examine what they tell us about the futures of European welfare states.

On 6 November, FSW colleagues gathered for the latest Food for Thought lunch meeting, focusing on “Politics and Society in the Aftermath of the 2025 Dutch Elections”. The event was opened by Joop van Holsteyn, who highlighted the purpose of the Food for Thought series: to create space for informal academic…