How has evolution shaped our curiosity? And how does that curiosity ensure that we now have the technological ability to discover whether we are alone in the universe? This was all covered during the celebration of Leiden University’s 449th Dies Natalis.

Psychologists Anna van ‘t Veer and Eiko Fried will start a scientific integrity workshop tour after the summer, called Responsible Scholarship: Psychology. Their aim: giving the subject a more prominent position in the academic’s mind.

On 7 July, the Mayor of Leiden, Peter Heijkoop, visited Leiden Law School. During his visit, he learned about the faculty’s commitment to advancing research and education while contributing to tackling the challenges faced by society.

What does Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker think about subjects such as student stress, ‘clean’ transcripts and the onward march of the English language? Law students fired their questions at Stolker during the Leiden version of College Tour on 27 January.

A safe haven for students, more bicultural staff and more powers for diversity officers. In a national expert meeting at Campus The Hague, administrators, diversity officers, students and staff discussed urgently needed measures.

The Clingendael Institute welcomes first-year MIRD students of the 2025-2027 cohort in an exclusive welcome event. Students explore internships, panel discussions, and electives on global politics, diplomacy, and climate advocacy, gaining both academic insights and practical experience.

Islam can be a difficult or sensitive subject to discuss with pupils, regardless whether they are Muslim. Fourteen secondary-school teachers and university lecturers went on a fact-finding trip to Morocco accompanied by experts from NIMAR (the Netherlands Institute in Morocco). What did they learn from…

What is the influence of non-hereditary factors on our health, such as lifestyle, diet and exposure to harmful substances? The Exposome-Scan project, led by Leiden professor Thomas Hankemeier, has been awarded 3.2 million euros from the NWO Investment Grant Large programme to answer this question. With…

How to innovate education? In this series, the Honours Academy highlights examples from their educational testing ground that aim to inspire. Today: the liberating effect of pass/fail and ‘unessays’ at Honours College Law.

Studying with an app and exploratory learning in large groups. Two educational innovations that will be possible thanks to the Comenius Programme of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Chemist Ludo Juurlink and Professor of Science Education Fred Janssen from the Leiden Graduate…

Every year, an outstanding lecturer receives the Faculty Teaching Prize from the teaching committee. The prize is awarded during the official opening of the academic year on 7 September. This year, students nominated eight candidates.

It is exactly one year ago that the university had to close, bang in the middle of the academic year. Suddenly, on that third Monday in March, we found ourselves at home, working and studying online – many of us from that cramped attic or student room. The momentous coronavirus year in pictures.

For more than 35 years they helped put American Studies on the map: Joke Kardux and Eduard van de Bilt. This spring, the couple retired. A farewell interview.

After a career spanning decades in intelligence services, Berrie Hanselman could have simply retired, but he chose not to. The Achterhoek native decided to continue and even earn a PhD on his subject: left-wing extremism. Gaining insight into the life of the left-wing activist who does not shy away…

The story of Tutankhamun, the Egyptian pharaoh, is world famous. But did you know that the Ancient Egyptians mummified not only people but animals too? The National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden recently put a bunch of animal mummies through a CT scanner. This was in collaboration with Canon Netherlands…

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

A novel in vivo model system for studies on glucocorticoid resistance

As part of the NEXUS1492 project, this project will use ancient DNA techniques to shed new light on the demographic and health history of the Caribbean and the impact of European colonization on indigenous communities in the region.

Serious forms of anxiety concerning other people’s opinions can hinder teenagers at school in social interactions or carrying out tasks. Psychologist Anne Miers is looking for ways to reduce this so-called ‘social anxiety’.

The research focuses on the understanding of symbolic stratigraphy of the land (through time) from the worldview of the People of the Rain (one of the Indigenous Peoples of southern Mexico), by studying contemporary cultural heritage in communities of the Mixtec Highlands.

What was the function of the Dutch Protestant Church in Sri Lankan society? Why did people relate to the Church and how did conversion influence their life course?

The Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC) and the Amsterdam Centre for Migration and Refugee Law (ACMRL) of the VU University Amsterdam organise a public seminar about global migration and refugee law in Egypt and Morocco, focusing on the International Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers…

CitiObs will consolidate and apply tools and practice-based knowledge for co-creating data, knowledge and local action regarding the environmental impacts of climate change and human activity in the urban context via Citizen Observatories.

Large telescopes can look so deep into the Universe that they can also look back billions of years in time. From 2018, the successor of the Hubble Space Telescope, the James Webb Space Telescope, will be able to see the period just after the Big Bang, when the first stars and galaxies formed. Astronomers…

How have human-environmental entanglements changed in the Gulf of San Miguel, Darien, Panama, from the first traces human practices through to the present?

Many of the big challenges of the 21st century (climate change, international migration, financial instability, socio-economic inequality) find their origins in the organisation of the global economy. Any solution to the world’s big challenges therefore requires forceful policy interventions at the…

Promotores: G.R. de Snoo, B. Sinsin, Co-Promotor: H.H. de Iongh

The research project MAXCAP: Maximizing the integration capacity of the European Union: Lessons and prospects for enlargement and beyond starts with a critical analysis of the effects of the 2004-2007 enlargement on stability, democracy and prosperity of candidate countries, on the one hand, and the…

Past, Present and Future of Nubian Communities in Sudan

Investigating the emergence of complex societies in Chalcolithic Cyprus.

You often hear that the public find court sentences too short. Professor Jan de Keijser emphasises that the gap is reduced if the public is given more information about a case and the sentence.

In order to stimulate research and teaching within the field of medieval studies in the Netherlands the Research School for Medieval Studies offers the opportunity to submit requests for the (co-)funding of congresses, workshops and master classes for the period between 2022-2027.

Your tuition fee depends on a number of factors, such as your nationality and your previous Dutch higher-education qualifications.

Leiden has one of the most petrified inner-cities of The Netherlands. This is not beneficial for the biodiversity crisis and Leiden University, with a significant number of buildings within the Singels, should be more proactive on this matter. Currently, LUGO is taking steps with internal departments…

The Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs of Leiden University in The Hague has developed a Serious Game, 'het Grote Migratiespel' to introduce secondary school students to their study and research programmes.

Amerindian intra- and inter-insular relationships and social organization in the pre-colonial Windward Islands.

My ERC Starting Grant, funded with €1.5 million for 5 years as part of the Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, is focused on building the early warning system WARN-D to reliably forecast depression in young adults before it occurs. Why depression, and why prediction?

To safeguard the quality of research within Leiden University, a committee of external experts evaluates the University’s institutes once every six years according to the Standard Evaluation Protocol, which is drawn up by the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU), the Royal Netherlands…

At Leiden Bio Science Park (LBSP) Leiden University works together with the business community, the LUMC and the Municipality of Leiden.

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden University Medical Center with the Anton de Kom University of Suriname.

The Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society offers PhD candidates the possibility to enroll in the VVI PhD Track.

Evidence and Care-work in a home visiting program to promote maternal sensitivity and parental reflective functioning in Alexandra township, Johannesburg, South Africa.

How to contribute to Inter-Section? What does the process look like? We have answered the most frequently asked questions.

Dr Kim Duistermaat (NVIC) en Niels Groot (TU Delft)

View the tuition fee information for the MSc Dutch Politics at Leiden University: statutory rates for EU/EEA students and institutional fees for non-EU applicants.