Finds uncovered in the east of Germany show that Neanderthals stored and preserved vast amounts of meat and/or temporarily aggregated in larger groups to exploit the spoils

‘I already gave a talk about planets when I was five.’ With the theme of the 3 October celebrations being ‘Jong geleerd is oud gedaan’ (meaning something like, ‘You’re never too young to learn’), this year’s 3 October University was especially for children. Many parents came with their offspring to…

The molecule calix[4]pyrrole, synthesised in the group of associate professor Sander Wezenberg at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry, has been voted ‘Molecule of the Year’ by the readers of C2W Mens & Molecule. Wezenberg received the award from editor Daniël Linzel.

A packaging-free shop, small mobile homes, solar panels on all Leiden's roofs… Jeroen Schrama, alumnus of Public Administration, is a creative world improver. ‘If we really want to save the world, we have to make much more radical choices.’

In otherwise energetic desserts at the bottom of the sea, researchers have found oases where microbes can harvest energy. Remarkably, the microbes first have to be buried under starving conditions for 80,000 years. An international group of researchers, amongst them José Mogollón from the Insitute of…

‘Praesidium Libertatis is a daily responsibility.’ These were the words of Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker on 8 February during the 443rd Dies Natalis of Leiden University. The University needs to pay continuous attention to open debate if it wants to remain a bastion of freedom.

Each year, the Netherlands Institute of Governance (NIG) invites PhD students from Public Administration departments at universities in the Netherlands and Flanders to nominate their supervisor(s) for the NIG Supervisor of the Year Award, to celebrate and recognize excellent PhD supervision. This year,…

The Master of Laws: Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights (LL.M.) was launched in 2015 to equip a generation of professionals to protect the rights of children worldwide. As the programme celebrates its 10th anniversary, we reflect on its impact.

Research and education at the intersection of law and technology is more important than ever. With its 40 years of experience, the eLaw department, founded in 1985, is ready for the future. Time to reflect on four decades of innovation.

If there’s one place at the University where it doesn’t matter where you come from, it’s De Kattekop. This, the University nursery, celebrates its 40th birthday in September. Its history reflects developments at the University. Parents are full of praise for it.

Armed with sunglasses, a thick layer of sunscreen and several bottles of water, over 3,300 students have arrived in Leiden for their introduction week. The start of the 55th EL CID happened to be on the hottest day of the year.

Irene Battisti is the discoverer of the year 2019. The physicist won the C.J. Kok Public Award for her research into microscopy and superconductors.

During the official opening of the 2018-2019 Academic Year on Monday 3 September, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer will talk about Europe and the future of our continent in a turbulent and unpredictable world. He will do this in the form of a lecture and a discussion with Imane Maghrani, an alumna of World Politics…

On Monday, 1 February a beautifully designed and accessible book appeared about two centuries of student financing and apprenticeship in the Netherlands, entitled Kansen in het Koninkrijk (‘Opportunities in the Kingdom’). The book was presented to Job Cohen, a Leiden University professor and chairman…

The Child Law Department of Leiden University and Defence for Children kindly invites you to the fourth Jaap Doek Children’s Rights Thesis Award Ceremony and the official launch of the book ‘The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Taking Stock after 25 Years and Looking Ahead’ (Brill…

Learn more about the former members of the Young Academy Leiden who contributed to a better position for young academics.

The Around the Rapenburg walk takes you along the canal where Leiden University was founded 450 years ago.

For fifteen years, Recep Uysal carried out research on positive psychology in Turkey; it is even the subject of his PhD. That was until he had to flee Turkey and start again from scratch in the Netherlands. Re-entering the academic world was a challenge, but he rediscovered his love for the field in…

A pop-up exhibition ‘All the Einsteins’ will open at Rijsmuseum Boerhaave on 29 May 2019. This is the first time that the museum will present its entire collection of handwritten letters and documents by Einstein. The exhibition marks, among others, the publication of the first photo of a black hole…

For the twelfth consecutive year, Leiden University College The Hague has been awarded the 'Top Programme' quality label by the Keuzegids Universiteiten 2025. With an impressive overall score of 89 out of 100 points, the Liberal Arts and Sciences: Global Challenges (BA/BSc) programme has earned five…

From sponsored runs to festivals and from open days to concerts: Leiden University hosts lots of events each year. We are highlighting six of them for 2023.

Fascinating images, articles of clothing and other unique objects from the past four centuries of the history of Leiden University can now be seen in the ‘Celebrating Curiosity’ exhibition in the hall of Rapenburg 70.

30 Years of Pale Blue Dot - 14 February 2020, Kaiserzaal, Old Observatory - The Pale Blue Dot Symposium is an event to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the iconic picture showing the Earth as a tiny speck in the vastness of space and to discuss its impact on humankind. At the end of the symposium,…

The Hague Project Peace & Justice, in cooperation with Dr. Alanna O’Malley of the Leiden University Institute for History, organized a one-day conference on October 23rd, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the United Nations. Students of the ‘A History of the United Nations’ elective course of the…

In the last weekend of April, the tenth edition of the Benelux Mathematics Olympiad took place. The Dutch delegation won a total of 8 medals. The 17-year-old Nils van de Berg even obtained a golden one!

Op 17 februari 1983 trad de geheel herziene Nederlandse Grondwet in werking. Het radioprogramma Villa VdB – gepresenteerd door Jurgen van den Berg – besteedde aandacht aan het 42-jarige jubileum van die gebeurtenis. Van den Berg ging daarover in gesprek met hoogleraar staatsrecht. Wim Voermans.

Book publication 'Artistic Research in Music: Discipline and Resistance' marks the 20th anniversary of the Orpheus Institute..

To mark its 75th anniversary, the Netherlands War Graves Foundation is publishing a portrait of a war victim every week this year. On 24 January the drawing of Irawan Soejono, a Leiden student and Indonesian resistance member, was unveiled at the Groenesteeg cemetery in Leiden, the place where Soejono…

The Journalism and New Media study programme is celebrating its 20th anniversary. On the occasion of the anniversary, student Iris Kole gives a glimpse of her day as an intern at the Leidsch Dagblad.

I recently went to the anniversary celebration of The Meeting Point, and the stories the refugee students told made a huge impression on me. The Meeting Point helps students from different backgrounds feel part of our university community.

On May 13 2022, Frans W. Saris will present the third of a series of "Hello World!" lectures, organised by the Media Technology MSc program of Leiden University. In his lecture titled "Computer Modeling to Save the World", Frans Saris addresses three alarming crises: energy and climate, biodiversity…

2024 was an eventful year for the Faculty of Humanities. Despite becoming the centre of political discussion and budget cuts as faculty ourselves, exceptional research projects were carried out and new initiatives were launched.

Leiden University will be conferring three honorary doctorates in its special anniversary year. They will be awarded to Eliot Higgins, truth finder and founder of Bellingcat, Bonnie Honig, expert in feminist theory and legal theory, and Kelly Chibale, professor of organic chemistry, who works on prevention…

Leiden University has seen another successful season of the European Law Moot Court Competition come to an end.

How do atoms and molecules end up forming planets? That's what astrochemist Julia Santos studied during her PhD. She discovered the dominant process behind the formation of methanol in space – a finding that surprised the entire field.

After an extensive content analysis of the coalition agreement, a sharp fall can be seen in the focus on education & culture, science & technology and defence. This is the conclusion of university public administration professors Gerard Breeman and Arco Timmermans. They compared the content with all…

Julia van Alem had never held a camera before, but she and her classmates were appointed as the City Photographer. ‘This project helped me learn how to create my own work better.’

Hoogleraar Internationaal Belastingrecht Tanja Bender heeft een vermelding gekregen in het boek Recognising 100 Years of Women in Tax.

Professor Frank den Hollander has been awarded a 10-year grant through the NWO Gravitation program, jointly with colleagues from the University of Amsterdam, the Center for Mathematics and Computer Science in Amsterdam, and the Technical University of Eindhoven.

Thomas Bakkum en Tom van der Wel, two PhD candidates from the Leiden Institute of Chemistry, have both won poster prizes at the EMBL Chemical Biology Conference 2018 in Heidelberg.

In March 2021, Assistant Professor Valentina Carraro took part in an expert roundtable providing recommendations to the United Nations Secretary-General on turning into action the goals of the Declaration on the Commemoration of the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the United Nations (UN75 Declaration).

Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics Wim van Saarloos received an honorary doctorate from the University of Twente last Friday. In addition to his work at Leiden University, Van Saarloos was president of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) until June 2020 and he led The Dutch…

Over 1600 pupils from primary schools in Leiden and The Hague were taught by a professor of Leiden University on the 444th anniversary of our university. Three professors from the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, visited several classes of group 7 in The Hague.

On 26 November 2014 Prof. Dr. Thomas Bäck gives the Cleveringa lecture at the University of Calgary in Canada entitled: Innovation: Can we use principles of evolution to guide it?

The Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law is the leading general series for monographs in international law which will celebrate its 70th anniversary next year.

A conference organized by Niels Blokker, professor of International Institutional Law and Ramses Wessel (RUG) to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the International Organizations Law Review.