Conference

Study support, Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

In a sailboat, a canoe or stowed away on a ship: during the Second World War, many Leiden students tried to cross the sea to join the Allies in Britain. ‘Soldier of Orange’ is the most famous, but who were the other ‘England voyagers’ or Engelandvaarders as they are known?

Conference

Lecture, Research Seminar

Middle East Studies Lecture

An extra-long procession with musical accompaniment will mark the beginning of the university’s 450th birthday celebrations on 7 February.

Jantien Hadders (50), head of Education and Research Policy at FGGA, lost the love of her life and, to her great sadness, did not become a mother. It was precisely by being able to share her loss in the workplace that she slowly regained trust in herself.

Lecture, Studium Generale

Lecture

The Lucia de Berk case or the suicide of Slobodan Praljak at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia: certain trials keep popping up in media. In her dissertation, Tessa de Zeeuw examines the cultural appeal of such cases and analyses artistic responses. ‘Artworks sometimes have…

The board of the Pastoor Schmeits Prize for Astronomy Foundation has awarded the Pastoor Schmeits Prize 2025 to two individuals: Yamila Miguel, affiliated to the Leiden Observatory, Leiden University and SRON, and to Else Starkenburg, affiliated to the Kapteyn Institute, University of Groningen. The…

On 8, 9 & 10 October Share the LUVE takes place, the graduation show with the work of this year’s graduates of the Cultural Anthropology master Visual Ethnography. In three days 22 films, a graphic novel, artwork and photos will be presented in De Buurt, close to Leiden Central Station. If you don’t…

On Saturday, February 11, 2023, at the Dies for Alumni event, archaeology alumni Everest Gromoll was awarded the LUF Thesis Prize. His thesis, titled ‘Neolithizers by Nurture’, explores parallels between the only two comparable climatic shifts in the history of modern humans: that of the one 12,000…

On Tuesday 12 January 2021, the annual Meijers prizes and thesis prizes were awarded at the online New Year’s event broadcast from the Old Observatory.

From the very beginning, the Islam has known an oral tradition. It was only two hundred years ago that Muslims starting writing about the history of Islam, on rocks or other hard materials. Arabic epigraphy (study of inscriptions) turns out to be an essential tool in historical genealogy research. Abdullah…

The student navigator 'Find your way' helps students find their way around the university. Student advisers can also be found on the roadmap. JanPieter, student advisor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA), explains what a student advisor does.

Medewerkers van de Universiteit Leiden trappen maandag 10 maart de estafettestaking af van de Nederlandse universiteiten tegen de kabinetsbezuinigingen.

Before researchers can develop targeted drugs, they need to know exactly how a disease works. Biochemist Bert Beerkens created molecules that allow them to find out. He used caffeine as the basis for new molecules that enable research into certain receptor proteins on cells.

Leiden University is a member of the Una Europa European alliance. This partnership of 11 research-intensive universities is working to shape the university of the future.

Today, Leiden University announces who the new Cluster Zuid on the Witte Singel will be named after. Summer 2023, a ballot determined the name of the complex on the former Van Wijkplaats/Van Eyckhof, which is expected to be completed in March. It was already established that the complex would be named…

Wolves in the Netherlands mainly feed on wild animals such as wild boar and red and roe deer. But in areas such as Drenthe where these are scarce they also prey on free-roaming cattle used for nature conservation

The author Manon Uphoff from Utrecht will be Leiden University’s new ‘writer in residence’ from autumn 2025. As the writer in residence, Uphoff will contribute to several courses on writing offered by the BA Dutch Language and Culture programme.

Last Thursday, March 6, Sabine Luning passed away after an illness of more than six months. Sabine was an inspiring teacher who enthused generations of anthropology students with both the theoretical side of social science and the practice of intensive fieldwork. As a researcher, she produced innovative…

Children who lost their fathers in early modern England ran the risk of being sold to the highest bidder. Although Shakespeare wrote about it in his plays, the practice disappeared from collective memory for a long time. University lecturer Lotte Fikkers is bringing it back to light in a new Vidi research…

During the ‘Hour of Remembrance’ on 4 May, the University community remembers its students and staff who were killed in the Second World War. It also looks at freedom and oppression today. Three questions for Sara Polak, chair of the Hour of Remembrance committee.

With the help of a LUF grant, archaeology student Anne Wagemakers investigated an archaeological assemblage in Spain. Now her research report has won the annual LISF prize.

Education, Research

In 1808, the United States banned the transatlantic slave trade. Not everyone was happy about this, as Marcella Schute discovered. In her thesis, she shows how politicians from Louisiana made serious attempts to restart the slave trade in the mid-nineteenth century.

Writer and columnist Nicolien Mizee will be Leiden University’s new writer in residence from autumn 2023.

September 26 is the European Day of Languages. There are 24 official languages in Europe but some 200 languages in total are spoken on our continent. What good are all these different languages? And should we all learn Azerbaijani or Swedish? We asked Lisa Cheng, Professor of General Linguistics.

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.

As of 1 September, archaeologist Amanda Henry has been appointed Full Professor at the Faculty of Archaeology, where she will hold the chair in Evolution in Hominin Diets. The appointment marks a new chapter in her academic journey, building on her longstanding research into ancient human diets and…

Leiden University is publishing a list giving an overview of its research collaborations with the fossil fuel industry.

The train to The Hague holds no secrets for Jeroen Touwen anymore. Since October, the Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Humanities has been part of the board of Campus The Hague. One day a week, together with Jan Crijns (Professor of Criminal Law and, as of February 15, Vice-Dean of the Law Faculty), he oversees…

The decolonisation war in Indonesia was violent partly because the Dutch military operated on the conviction that ‘an uprising had to be forcibly suppressed.’ This what historian Christiaan Harinck from the KITLV discovered in his PhD research.

The Leiden University Visual Ethnography collection has been added to Alexander Street Press, an educational streaming video service. The master’s specialization Visual Ethnography has supported many talented individuals to produce inspiring films. About 70 master’s thesis films of the past 8 years…

Collaborating and learning from other fields – that is what bioinformatician Hannah Augustijn enjoys most about doing research. During her PhD at Leiden University, she developed new ways to search within bacteria for the antibiotics of the future.

Het zichtbaar maken van ongeschreven verhalen van inheemse culturen en volken van de Cariben. Dat doet de tentoonstelling ‘Caribbean Ties’ in de Oude UB.

New research has revealed that one of Europe’s largest prehistoric mass graves records the deliberate killing of women and children, showing how gender- and age-selective violence was used to disrupt communities and assert power in the Early Iron Age. Leiden archaeologist Jason Laffoon was involved…

The nominees for the Prof. Dr. J.Th.J. van den Berg-prijs 2022 and the IRO Thesis Prize 2022. Who wrote the best bachelor thesis in Political Science?

The jury of the Africa Thesis Award is delighted to announce that the 2025 prize has been awarded to Yonwaba Matshobotiyana of the University of the Free State, South Africa, with a thesis on Black women's poetry in South Africa.