Luc Amkreutz, curator of prehistory at the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden and professor of Public Archaeology at Leiden University, has a mission: to make the past accessible and relevant to a broad audience. He is the new Eugène Dubois Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Science and Engineering…

It’s Circular Economy Week, from 1 to 6 February. But what is it that makes an economy circular? And just how circular is our university? René Kleijn, lecturer on the honours class Circular Economy: from challenge to opportunity, explains.

CML grants three Stans Awards each year, known as the best PhD paper, best student thesis and best outreach from the past year. The CML staff nominated students and colleagues and this year’s jury Prof.dr. Koos Biesmeijer and Prof.dr. Nicole de Voogd made the final decision.

Assistant professor Carmen Van den Bergh has been nominated for the Leiden University Teaching Prize. ‘I combine literature education with social relevance and personal experience.’

Onderwijsparade onderwijsvernieuwing Kernvisie

Gert Renkema, Head of Financial Economic Affairs/Business Controller of FGGA, tells us how the faculty is doing

From 6-8 April 2026 the conference "From the ground up: The politics of burial and memory in the early Islamic world" will take place in Cairo, Egypt. Deadline for sending in your abstract: 21 June 2025.

Expert in public affairs and politics Arco Timmermans advised the informer Kim Putters.

Markus Altena Davidsen was 'extremely happy' when he heard that he and his colleagues had been awarded a grant from the KNAW pilot fund for science communication. Together with partners from all over the country, they are working on a book that should inspire secondary schools to renew their education…

In September 2023 the new minor Sustainability, Climate Change and Food starts. This minor critically examines the complexities of food sustainability through ecological, socio-economic, political, and cultural systems.

To underline the urgency: Our faculty faces a significant financial challenge. With a structural reduction of €5 to €6 million in annual income, dark clouds are gathering on the horizon. Added to this are the uncertain consequences of budget cuts from The Hague, including the Balanced Internationalisation…

Giles Scott-Smith is the new dean of LUC (Leiden University College) in The Hague. He succeeds Judi Mesman and starts on 1 July. Scott-Smith: ‘Joining LUC as Dean is a serious honour, and I follow in the footsteps of three Deans who I respect and admire.’

Technology and privacy, trust and mistrust. A discussion about this broke out when the University installed scanners and students protested. On Wednesday 2 February experts from Leiden University will explore this topic at the eponymous symposium. We called Roy de Kleijn, as a computer scientist and…

‘A challenging rollercoaster, but also a very bonding and insightful experience,’ that’s how the team of iGEM Leiden 2022 wraps up their participation in the iGEM contest. The contest for synthetic biology climaxed during the Grand Jamboree in Paris. The team ended up in the top 10 of over 360 teams…

Cosmologists can measure with increasing precision how the universe is expanding and changing. This is producing unexpected results and causing cracks in our picture of the universe. At the ESOF session The Dark Side of our Mysterious Universe, cosmologists, astronomers and philosophers will discuss…

From 22 January on, the video conferencing app Zoom will be available for students and teachers at Leiden University. The University is responding to calls by staff and students, and has now acquired the programme.

Learn how silence can benefit your well-being during Work Stress Week from 11 to 15 November. It’s no surprise that we sometimes need a bit of peace and quiet, says Professor of Auditory Culture Marcel Cobussen. ‘Our brain is exposed day and night to auditory stimuli.’

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.

You can make some astounding images using just a box with a hole. Inspired by the celebration of Leiden as the European City of Science, Professor Matthew Kenworthy left several pinhole cameras across the Observatory over the course of 2021. This is how the simplest devices may uncover the greatest…

From chilling on the beach to a speech by the mayor. HOPweek is a speedy way for hundreds of ‘Leiden’ students who are going to be studying in The Hague to get to know each other. Many of them come from abroad. ‘I actually dare to cycle here.’

Rain or shine: in the course ‘The Ecology Project’ students of Leiden University College visit the nature of The Hague each week.

Steel production is likely to take up a large portion of our future carbon budget. Capturing CO₂ from coal-based production won’t solve the problem. Technologies that rely on renewables are more effective, but not enough to get to net zero.

Students stream into the lecture hall, handing in their mobile phones at the door. Once everyone’s seated, silence descends and all eyes turn to the large screen at the front of the lecture hall. A live connection has been set up with the prison where Marco is a long-term inmate. Today, the students…

Most people think of waste as something dirty that needs to be disposed of as soon as possible, but Olivia Yun-An Dung's dissertation aims to show that this does not always have to be the case. For this purpose, she focuses on Tzu Chi recycling in Taiwan. There, an army of elderly volunteers has been…

From once controversial scientific works and historical bibles, to personal shopping lists and clothing bills. The 17th-century Bibliotheca Thysiana and the archive of the collector Johannes Thysius exhibit both the intellectual and everyday life as it was three hundred years ago. Now a brand-new digital…

Peter Stevenhagen delivered daily lectures at the Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering in Lahore, in collaboration with ICTP, a well-known UNESCO institute in Trieste. The aim is to enhance it he knowledge of students from low- and middle-income countries. ‘By teaching here, I can truly…

Als universitair hoofddocent Ethiek en Digitale Technologie is zij verbonden aan het centrum voor Recht en Digitale Technologie (eLaw) waarvan ze ook hoofd onderwijs is. Daarnaast is Francien initiatiefnemer en coördinator van de universiteitsbrede minor AI & Society en neemt ze deel aan de universitaire…

Opponents of drastic nitrogen measures argue that the nitrogen calculation model is not reliable enough. Nitrogen professor Jan Willem Erisman: 'It is now much more important to discuss the choices we make on the basis of the outcome. The differences are much bigger than the uncertainties in the mod…

Gijs Zebregts had just graduated from International Studies when he was stricken with acute leukaemia. A stem cell donor brought relief. Now he is going to cycle from Florence to Rotterdam to raise money and awareness for the donor bank.

Since a few months, Executive Director Niels Laurens no longer has to divide his attention between two faculties but has been able to fully focus on FGGA. A conversation about the dynamics within our Faculty, his management style, and the steps we will all have to take together to improve issues such…

Two Leiden students stand a chance of winning the ECHO Award for Higher Education. Deniz Rana Kuseyri (Rana for short) and Ruşen Koç are two of the six finalists for this annual national prize that is awarded to students who promote diversity and inclusion in their own discipline.

Wat betekent het om alumni te zijn aan de Faculteit der Rechtsgeleerdheid? Naast een maandelijks blad en een groot netwerk organiseert de faculteit ook jaarlijks het alumni-evenement ‘Leiden Revisited’. Wie zijn deze alumni en waarom blijven zij graag actief?

From scanners in lecture halls to systems for working from home: the discussion about new technology is being held on various fronts. That is why the University wants to make more use of its in-house experts. At the Technology and Trust symposium at Leiden University on 2 February, researchers from…

How can the Netherlands help secure a peaceful future for Israel and Palestine? At a recent meeting at the university, two remarkable speakers shared their perspectives: Somaya Bashir, a Palestinian woman living in Israel, and Palestinian journalist, Houssam Khadra, who fled Gaza over a decade ago.

Wat betekent de faculteitsraad voor medewerkers en hoe stel je jezelf verkiesbaar? Gelijn Molier, universitair hoofddocent bij Encyclopedie van de Rechtswetenschap, zit sinds 2019 in de faculteitsraad, vanaf dit jaar als voorzitter: ‘Mensen onderschatten dat je echt invloed kan hebben.’

eHealth can improve our lifestyle without the involvement of a healthcare provider. Talia Cohen Rodrigues investigated the possibilities for people with cardiovascular diseases. ‘People with a low socioeconomic status may be more difficult to reach with eHealth.’ She will defend her doctoral thesis…

Maak kennis met digitale veiligheid in de podcast over de BSc Cybersecurity & Cybercrime. Experts bespreken actuele thema’s zoals ransomware en online fraude.

Niels van Leeuwen is enrolled in the Master Public Administration: Economics & Governance. During the first stage of his master, he did an internship in the United States, at the economic affairs department of the Royal Netherlands Consulate General in Chicago. ‘There are more ways that lead to Rome…

A group of biology students are working on a solution to the world’s plastics problem by getting bacteria to make biodegradable plastic.

In mid-March 2020, the global coronavirus outbreak changed everything in the Netherlands. Staying at home as much as possible and the 1.5 metre rule became the standard. One year on, we reflect on the past year with four Leiden Law School ‘insiders’. What kind of year did they have? And what are their…

Earning some quick money by drug trafficking, committing an act of violence or almost collapsing under performance pressure. In the four-part NeurolabNL Young vodcast young people talk openly with neuroscientists about high-risk behaviour and performance pressure. How did they find their way back?

Today marks the launch of the LDE Bachelor Honours Programme Sustainability. Students from Leiden University, TU Delft and Erasmus University will work together on concrete sustainability issues of organisations. Interest in the new programme turned out to be overwhelming. Two lecturers involved share…

On 12 April the Humanities Campus Think Tank held its second meeting in the Lipsius Building. In a Q&A session with Elisa Meijer, the Facilities project leader, the members asked about the context and room for manoeuvre in the development of the new Humanities Campus work environment.

Sharing his passion for sustainability with students—that’s what Thijs Bosker enjoys most about his work. As an environmental scientist, he conducts ecotoxicological research, but next to this he loves teaching. ‘Everyone can make a difference in their own way.’

An important part of the Leiden Leadership Programme (LLP) is the practical assignment that students are given by a partner organisation. How does this benefit the organisations? Two Leiden partners talk about working with the students.

As well as offering students a first-rate education, Leiden University provides a wide range of training for professionals, so they can be lifelong learners. And that is not just of value to participants. ‘As a university, you start a dialogue with society to achieve better knowledge together.’

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing, what exactly does he do and what does his day look like? In each newsletter, Jasper gives an insight into his life.

The start of the renovation of Cluster Zuid was a long time coming, but the moment has finally arrived. On Wednesday 8 June, Dean Mark Rutgers, accompanied by the contractor Constructif, symbolically marked the start of the demolition and reconstruction works by demolishing part of the roof.

UNESCO has recognized an international set of fifteen manuscripts about Ferdinand Magellan's first circumnavigation of the globe and the three Hikayat Aceh manuscripts as World Heritage. The manuscripts are inscribed in the global UNESCO Memory of the World Register. This list contains documentary heritage…

In collaboration with the Biate community of Meghalaya (Noth East India), I am co-creating the first-ever bilingual picture book in the Biate language. The project began with Biate schoolchildren collecting stories about their environment — stories shared by parents, neighbours, and village elders.