The Development and Alumni Relations department maintains contact with Leiden University alumni to stimulate and strengthen our alumni’s involvement with the University. If you wish to know more about our alumni, or organise an alumni event, do not hesitate to contact us.

Leiden University alumni can make use of a number of University services: ULCN and uMail, career support, mentoring network and the Young Alumni Network.

Leiden University’s alumni database is managed by the department for Alumni Relations and Fundraising and currently stores information on around 105,000 registered alumni.

Governance and Global Affairs, Leiden University College The Hague

One of the good things about my job is that I come into contact with so many different alumni. It’s incredibly important that we build good relationships with our alumni from a young age already. We can help our graduates develop skills and grow their network, and they in turn can help our organisation…

Alumni event

Alumni event

It is one of the most talked-about subjects right now: how do we eradicate sexual harassment and violence? Alumnus Femke Eisma is the spokesperson for Mariëtte Hamer, the government commissioner tasked with tackling this persistent social problem. Eisma studied the Dutch language at Leiden. How is her…

Alumni event

The Development and Alumni Relations department offers a number of offline and online communication resources for alumni. Alumni are approached via the Leidraad magazine, the digital newsletter Alumni News and the alumni website. The University also manages a number of social media accounts especially…

Alumni event

Graduation is an important occasion both for the student and for the University. This is the point in time when a student becomes an alumnus. The University is eager to maintain lifelong contact with its alumni.

De afdeling Alumnirelaties & Fondsenwerving stimuleert en vergroot de betrokkenheid van onze alumni in Nederland en in het buitenland. Naast het organiseren van alumni-activiteiten, biedt de afdeling Alumnirelaties en Fondsenwerving ondersteuning aan medewerkers op het gebied van fondsenwerving en…

Leiden University is proud of its research and teaching, its staff and its students. This is why we are keen to inform society of what goes on at the University.

She stands out for the moderate tone she takes in discussions on Dutch talk shows. Without judgement you can have an open conversation, criminal lawyer Natacha Harlequin learned in her student days in Leiden. ‘What I personally think of the alleged act doesn’t matter so much.’

Jaïr van Rhenen studied Medicine in Leiden and is now a GP in the largely religious Veenendaal. Before this, he worked as a tropical medicine doctor in Lesotho. ‘If you have the prospect of an afterlife, you often respond differently to illness.’

Giving a presentation about the University? There are standard presentations available.

Here you will find an overview of all communication departments within the university.

After obtaining their PhD, most of our graduates find a new position outside the University, for instance in the private sector or a civil society organisation. As you will not necessarily continue your career within the academic world, it is important to start thinking in good time about what you would…

We carry out regular evaluations with a view to improving the quality of our teaching. The programme committees and the Accreditation Organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders (NVAO) play an important part in this process. In addition, a student satisfaction survey is also carried out very year:…

If you have a question about the University website, or if you wish to post an announcement or report content-related changes, please contact the web editors of your faculty or unit.

How do you write a good news article? Here are a number of guidelines to help you.

Bachelor

From interview training and competence tests to internships and contact with alumni. At Leiden University there are many ways for our students to prepare for the job market, but the support available is often too fragmented and hard to find. How can we best prepare our students for a job market that…

Social media is a good way to meet others or to hear about the latest news and developments. It is an excellent way to tell people about what you are doing and to hear what they are up to too. But social media also has its downsides: disinformation, trolling, disrespectful comments and even the misuse…

If you’re unsure where to refer students to for well-being support, this page should help. It provides an overview of the support available at Leiden University.

Our Keyholders are a close network of over 500 committed donors who actively support Leiden University. Pauline Höhner-Regout, who started working at the LUF since April, talks about her role as a Keyholder fundraiser.

Governance and Global Affairs, Institute of Security and Global Affairs

To help you make the impact or valorisation of your scientific research more clearly apparent, we have created a Leiden Impact Matrix.

Governance and Global Affairs, Leiden University College The Hague

So how do you find that one grant opportunity that will bring you success? The trick is to find a funding opportunity where your needs and the expectations of the funding agency are well aligned. That is why you need a search strategy.

Leiden University has a new Executive Board. Since 8 February 2021, Annetje Ottow has been the new President and Hester Bijl the new Rector Magnificus of the Board, while Martijn Ridderbos has continued in his role as Vice-Chairman.

Education, Facility, Organisation

The Academy for Professionals project started in November. The project will focus on further developing existing and new educational programmes for professionals. ‘This is part of taking valorisation seriously.’

With the long lockdown, it’s been a hard year for Leiden businesses. How can the local economy bounce back and how can the University help? Two talk shows discussing this were recently recorded in the Academy Building. They will be aired on Unity TV on 28 September and 12 October.

I was disgusted by the recent Ongehoord Nederland broadcast on 15 September. The racist and hateful comments made by alumna Raisa Blommesteijn were, as far as I am concerned, way over the line and in my opinion also violate Article 1 of the Constitution of the Netherlands.

You can apply various means to increase your societal impact: through interaction with professionals, the commercial sector or general audiences. The University can support you in this process in a number of ways.

Alumni event

In its Strategic Plan Leiden University sets its direction for the coming years. A new plan will be presented next year, and in the runup to this we are organising different forms of student and staff consultation within the scope of LDN FWD (‘Leiden Forward’). A series of meetings were recently held…

Black-and-white photographs filled with solemn young men and distinguished professors line the walls of the Grand Auditorium. Young women are missing from the photos; women rarely obtained PhDs 50 years ago. And this article is about that group, the PhD candidates between 1966 and 1972, who were invited…

On 4 May, Leiden University remembered the victims of the Second World War from our university community. Alumni, students and present and former staff of the University came together for this Hour of Remembrance.

Alumni event

Kool made a conscious choice to work for a non profit organisation. Recently, inspired by the pandemic, she also made a career switch.

Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl can see dilemmas but above all opportunities in the search to increase the societal value of research in Leiden.

Gert Oostindie, Emeritus Professor of Colonial and Postcolonial History, is this year’s Cleveringa Professor at Leiden University. He was appointed by the University on 4 October. In his inaugural lecture on 24 November, entitled Courage and Disregard, he will talk about (academic) freedom in relation…

On 26 November 1940 Professor Cleveringa held his courageous speech protesting against the dismissal of his Jewish colleague, Professor Meijers. Cleveringa was arrested and the university was closed. Every year the university honours Cleveringa with a chair and meetings throughout the world.

Research, Communication

Various thought-provoking questions have been appearing online and in print adverts. They are part of a national university funds campaign in which the Leiden University Fund (LUF) is also participating. We wanted to find out more, so we called LUF Director, Lilian Visscher.