On Monday 23 January 2023 J.T.P. (Hans) de Bruijn passed away at the age of 91. Until 1995 he held the Chair of New Persian Language and Culture at Leiden University.

Building on the idea to “never waste a good crisis” the Leiden Leadership Centre reflected on what we can learn from the COVID-crisis and what kind of leadership opportunities we can identify during the Leiden Leadership Lunch of Friday 12 March. The luncht was the first of a three-part series of events…

The announcement was made shortly before the summer break: from 1 September the annual Performance & Development (P&D) interview will have a new format and also a new name. The P&D interview will be changing to GROW (Gesprekken over Resultaat, Ontwikkeling en Welzijn): Conversations on Performance,…

Suddenly getting lost, failing to recognise family members, or forgetting words and names are well-known symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Psychologists have now discovered that the disease also manifests in more subtle ways: through the rhythm of finger tapping.

Did he dare take a gamble with his PhD research? Jeroen Methorst didn’t have to think long about it. It could fail or turn out very well. The latter is the case. Methorst developed a computer system that helps researchers find the protein they need. ‘Our whole group is now using this program.’ Methorst…

When you think of political philosophy, you think of Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel and Johann Fichte. Both philosophers are considered great representatives of German idealism. University lecturer in Continental Philosophy Marie Louise Krogh has received a Veni subsidy to delve deeper into the German idealists…

The presence and participation of interest groups in policymaking processes has become a crucial component of Western democracies. These groups link society and policymakers and influence public policy choices. Their function however, is often taken for granted and not very well researched. Adrià Albareda…

Lecture, Studium Generale

Debate

Lecture

Sebastian Diessner, assistant professor at the Institute of Public Administration, has won a grant from the Leverhulme Fund together with three researchers from the United Kingdom. The grant, worth 350,000 euros, is for the research project: 'The Political Economy of Knowledge-Based Growth.'

Student well-being is more important than ever and is high on Leiden University’s agenda. There are many recent new initiatives, such as Well-Being Week and POPcorner The Hague. To streamline all these new initiatives and create new student well-being activities, a Student Well-Being Officer has recently…

International researchers have, for the first time, pinpointed the moment when planets began to form around a star beyond the Sun. Using the ALMA telescope, in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, and the James Webb Space Telescope, they have observed the creation of the first…

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.

Professor Henk te Velde started as interim dean of the Faculty of Humanities on 1 March. Mark Rutgers' successor is faced with the task of getting the faculty back to financial health.

And the construction has started! Students of the Leiden Science study associations ceremoniously hammered down the first poles of the new Gorlaeus on Tuesday morning. By doing so, they initiated the second phase of the construction of the second part of the new building.

Lecture

Education

NWO-funded audiovisual research into the experiences of migrants during major life events has culminated in new insights that can further our understanding of complex migration dynamics. The completion of this five-year project was marked with a roundtable event including international guests.

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.

The Pieter de la Court building will be given a new name. This was decided by the university's Executive Board in the summer of 2025, at the request of the FSW Faculty Board. The name will no longer be used for our faculty's main building or the student medal.

Liselotta Jahnke, Jason Irwin, Rachel Cruickshank and Paula Kovač are the new student members of the Programme Committee (OLC). This committee advises the Executive Board and the Faculty Board of CADS about educational matters, such as determining the Course and Examination Regulations and evaluating…

After an intensive tender procedure, Leiden University and the Municipality of Oegstgeest have chosen Dura Vermeer for a new housing development with plenty of affordable homes in Nieuw Rhijngeest-Zuid. Dura Vermeer seeks to create a green and playful neighbourhood with welcoming public spaces as its…

Prof. Sarah de Rijcke will succeed Paul Wouters as dean of Leiden University's Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (FSW) from 1 January 2024. Paul Wouters will retire at the beginning of January.

A suitcase as a messenger of quantum science. That is the idea behind QuanTour, a project connecting researchers from 12 European universities. In December, the suitcase landed in Leiden. A month later, it is time to pass the baton to Copenhagen. But what happened to it in Leiden?

Education

The starting point of human-induced landscape changes has been under permanent debate. It is widely accepted that the emergence of agriculture strongly increased human impact on their environments. However, foragers can and do actively transform land cover and ecosystems. Ethnographic observations,…

How do cells repair their damaged DNA—and what happens when that process is hindered and cancer arises? Sarah Moser has taken a closer look during her PhD, uncovering surprising insights that could help improve future cancer treatments.

Why are health problems such as loneliness and obesity so persistent? What causes them to occur more frequently in some neighborhoods than others? And how can we solve them? You will learn about these topics in the new minor 'Co-creating a Healthy Society'.

The new Ehrenfest multi-storey car park at the heart of the Leiden Bio Science Park was opened today by the Vice-Chairman of the Executive Board of Leiden University, Martijn Ridderbos. The car park, an initiative of the University, should improve accessibility and quality of life on the campus.

PhD candidate Daniël Gomon has developed statistical methods that could significantly improve research in fields like medicine and demography. ‘Mathematicians don’t like unrealistic assumptions,’ he says. Gomon will defend his PhD thesis on 19 June.

Technological developments never stop. Machines can already perform many tasks and in the future they will probably take over even more of the work we do. Which jobs could disappear and which will remain in the future? Olaf van Vliet, Professor of Economics at Leiden Law School, commented on these issues…

Organisation

Education, Finance

The Netherlands has gained a third commentary on the Constitution – with Leiden as its home base. The first copy of Een nieuw commentaar op de Grondwet (A new commentary on the Constitution) (published by Boom Amsterdam) was presented to Prime Minister Mark Rutte in the Torentje last week.

On 10 December 2024, the European Parliament played host to an insightful presentation of ‘Protecting Democracy in Europe: Pluralism, Autocracy, and the Future of the EU’, the new book by Tom Theuns, Assistant Professor at Leiden University. Hosted by MEP Thijs Reuten (PvdA/S&D) and his team, the event…

Education

Wouter Weeda has been appointed Scientific Director of the Institute of Psychology by the Board of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. He will start on 1 December 2025 for a period of three years, succeeding Hanneke Hulst.

Tax scandals, like the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers, and the Pandora Papers, have made tax avoidance by large multinationals and rich individuals a major topic of public debate. Policymakers are pushed to close tax loopholes and reform the global tax system. But this is no easy task.

On December 4, 2024, Prof. dr. Sarah Cramsey gave a short lecture before a film at the Czechoslovak New Wave Film Festival in Rotterdam. The festival was expertly organized by Ms. Hana Schenkova, the Director of the Czech Centre in Rotterdam, and featured more than a dozen films from Czechoslovakia…