The one-year (60 EC) master in Classics and Ancient Civilizations provides intensive and comprehensive training covering the entire range of present-day research on the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome and the Ancient Near East.

With an MSc in Biology you are well prepared for future jobs in research or industry. After your graduation you can pursue a PhD career or a career as a researcher, focusing on groundbreaking research on sustainability, at universities and research institutes.

Do you have broad interests and enjoy doing more besides your regular schoolwork? Then you probably always want to know the ins and outs! That is exactly what the Pre-University College is: an extra programme for students who want and are able to do more.

PhD Candidates are encouraged to start thinking about job prospects well before the defence of their thesis. This page contains information about how to prepare yourself.

In 1940 the Germany occupiers ordered the dismissal of all Jewish staff of the university. This resulted in protest speeches by fellow academics.

The key facts and figures about Leiden University from its Annual Report for 2024.

A fun challenge full of energy, teamwork and good vibes? On Saturday 21 June 2025, the Leiden Science Run was back!

Education for professionals. Leiden University offers a wide range of courses to boost your career, learn new skills, or broaden your knowledge.

Get the most out of your studies at Leiden University by taking part in our extracurricular activities.

Completing your Master’s in Biology gives you an internationally recognised degree which you can follow up with a PhD track. With your acquainted skills, you’re a much requested professional in and outside research.

The Mathematics and High-Tech Innovation specialisation gives you a unique combination of expertise in advanced mathematics with experience in industry, putting you in the perfect position to follow a career in R&D, hardware or software engineering, or research at the interface of mathematics and its…

You should think about job perspectives well before the defence of your thesis.

Many students receive their first job offer during or right after their Business Studies internship. With an MSc in Physics you are well prepared for broad array of career prospects in research or industry.

The most urgent sustainability challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, resource depletion, and pollution, are complex issues that concern society as a whole. This means that among employers there is a growing demand for graduates who are able to combine both natural scientific and social…

Our program specializes in creative exploration and a broad understanding of scientific research and technology. It prepares students for a career involving creative and critical thinking. Our alumni have a broad choice of career prospects: they hold positions ranging from academic researcher to creative…

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With a Master of Statistics & Data Science you have good job perspectives: statisticians and data scientists are highly sought after in various industries such as food and pharmaceutic industry, in governmental organizations, and in healthcare. Qualification to become a PhD candidate is a definite…

This master specialisation is ideally suited as a basis for starting a research career at a university or research institute and for a position in a bioscience-based company.

Managers in the public and semi-public sector work in an increasingly complex and unpredictable environment, which demands new knowledge and competences but also offers tremendous opportunities. This will be the view presented by Zeger van der Wal, professor by special appointment in Public Administration,…

Americans are electing a new president in November but they also have other choices to make in the polling booth. Alumnus Sanne Rijkhoff works at a Texas university and is trying to help make students more aware of the elections.

Over 300 people from 38 different countries took part in the online lecture

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

Alzheimer’s disease and cancer are two examples of diseases that are related to malfunctioning cellular patterns. The examination of cell tissue, however, takes a lot of time and generates a lot of data. To make the analysis of data easier, Antonios Somarakis of the Data Science Research Programme (DSRP)…

Many academics who specialise in tax law also work for commercial tax consultancies. It would very much seem as though the combination of different roles can hamper independent research, says Jan Vleggeert in his inaugural lecture on 30 October. Tax avoidance and other hot topics therefore do not receive…

Curiosity is the driving force behind the research of ecologist Michiel Veldhuis. The associate professor investigates ecosystems in relation to climate change in the savannahs of Africa. More and more, he is also looking at social factors such as the influence of population growth. The KNAW rewards…

The European Commission has released 50 million euro to strengthen artificial intelligence in Europe. Five consortia were selected to spend this 50 million to prepare artificial intelligence research in Europe for greater investment. With the funding, four new networks of centres of excellence in artificial…

Many Humanities scholars keep a blog of their own. This summer, we’re putting these in the spotlight. For this week’s interview, we sat down with dr. Florian Schneider of the Politics East Asia blog.

Some fifty students started their study of Europe in Practice on 4 April. This minor includes lectures by professionals who work closely with the European Union.

Robots, nervous looks and above all, lots of fun. On November 16, children up to 16 years old came together for the MakeX competition. With this robot contest, in which children program their own robots, children are made enthusiastic about technology and programming.

Quantum Delta NL, a research programme in which Leiden University participates, has been awarded 615 million euros from the National Growth Fund to help develop the Netherlands into a top player in quantum technology. This has been announced at the presentation of the honoured proposals in The Hague…

Greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and fertilizers in the groundwater have negative consequences for our environment. With an electrochemical process they can be transformed to more valuable and useful substances like fuel and alcohol. Chemistry PhD candidate Elena Perez Gallent discovered how this…

Researchers from Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) have discovered how malaria parasites escape the immune system of mosquitoes. The so-called QC enzyme changes proteins on the outside of the malaria parasite such that the immune cells are unable to recognise the parasite. As a result, the parasite…

Composer Paul Craenen (1972) is actually a pianist, but as part of his PhD ceremony, he performed a composition on PVC pipes. Craenen studies the position and role of the body in music. ‘I am interested in what precedes the resulting sound’.

An international team of astronomers have become the first in the world to detect isotopes in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. It concerns different forms of carbon in the gaseous giant planet TYC 8998-760-1 b. The research will be published in the scientific journal Nature on Thursday.

An international team of astronomers led by Violeta Gámez Rosas (Leiden University) has observed a supermassive black hole hidden in a ring of dust. This discovery fits the idea that the so-called active centers of galaxies are much more similar than observations show, because the viewing angle from…

Many astronomers suspect that most of the matter in the universe is invisible. So how can you weigh dark matter if you can't actually see it? Professor Henk Hoekstra is looking for a solution. Inaugural lecture 25 June.

To develop good cancer treatments, we need to know much more about how malignant tumour cells develop. Professor Ewa Snaar-Jagalska looks at not just the effect of medication on isolated cells but also the behaviour of cancer cells in their tissue environment. Inaugural lecture on 11 December.

Students of the Leiden University master Computer Science are the first students in the world that have been educated in programming with a quantum computer. ‘With this system, it is finally possible to solve complex real-life problems of society.‘

Jianfeng Ge and Milan Allen of Leiden University look for majorana quasiparticles using shot noise measurements

Immediately connect with the needs of industry with your master’s degree. The new course Practical Aspects of Quality Management in Pharma and Biotech provides just that. The LACDR and LUMC set up the course together with the Biotech Training Facility, located at the Leiden Bio Science Park. The first…

Korea specialist Koen De Ceuster has combined 1200 posters from North Korea in one database. He believes the posters are extremely valuable for researchers who want to make a more in-depth study of this closed country. The database will be launched on 15 June in Leiden.

A Dutch-led team of astronomers has discovered that high-mass stars are formed differently from their smaller siblings. Whereas small stars are often surrounded by an orderly disk of dust and matter, the supply of matter to large stars is a chaotic mess. The researchers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter…

Stefaan Van den Bogaert, Professor of European Law and Academic Director of the Institute of Public Law, is to join the Faculty Board of Leiden Law School as Director of Research and Vice Dean.

Global problems such as diseases of affluence or microplastics in the sea are too complex to be dealt with from a single scientific discipline or by just one country. Leiden University has the expertise to bring solutions to these enormous problems a step closer. Read more in the research dossier on…

Ecologist Rosaleen March from the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) will carry on her research on functional biodiversity: a measure to assign value to ecosystems. Following her previous Marie Curie co-fund, she now receives a full Marie Curie fellowship. March: ‘We need to know how losing biodiversity…

How can young people grow up successfully and contribute to the present and future society? The consortium that is researching this will receive 22 million euros within the scope of the Gravitation programme.