Marijke Brouwer started as an archaeologist, excavating Iron Age settlements in the Dutch polder regions. Today she is the director of medieval Huis Bergh, one of the largest castles in the Netherlands. How did this unusual career development come about?

Short description about 20th anniversary of CEDC, the fieldstation in Cameroon, and 20 years of cooperation between Leiden University with the University of Dschang in Cameroon.

It is difficult to get access to North Korea. That makes scientific fieldwork very difficult. Korea expert Valérie Gelézeau shared her experiences during a lunch lecture at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) on 16 February.

Lecture, CHEI Seminar

No less than seven scholars of the Faculty of Humanities were awarded a Veni grant. Veni grants are aimed at excellent researcher who recently obtained their doctorate. With a maximum grant of 250.000 euros, the laureates can develop their research ideas in the coming three years.

The summer has flown by and the Nexus 1492 team in Valverde, Dominican Republic, has once again had an exciting and successful season!

How do molecules originate and evolve in space? And how does that ultimately determine the chemical composition of planets and their atmospheres? The Dutch Astrochemistry Network (DANIII) receives 1.6 million euros from NWO to find out. A large group of Leiden astronomers and chemists is contributing:…

Leiden University has become more sustainable in the past few years, but it could do better, particularly in the area of teaching and research. A student and staff workgroup is preparing a new Sustainability Vision 2030. Programme Manager Daphne van den Berg explains how this is taking shape and where…

No matter how hard Chinese communists tried to control the economy, they could not stop the free market from flourishing. This was the message given by historian Frank Dikötter on 7 February during a lecture on the Cultural Revolution. He will be awarded an Honorary Doctorate on 8 February.

A linguistics journal based at Leiden University has risen to the ranks of the top-10 journals in the Humanities.

With our research and teaching, we help make the world a better place. We join in the academic and public debate, and seek answers to economic and social issues – not just at the local and regional level but at the global one too.

The research profile area Interaction between Legal Systems has a multidisciplinary approach and aims to inspire innovative research. Out of all the proposals put forward, three winning projects have been selected for the forthcoming research period 2016-2020.

Vice-rector Organisatieontwikkeling en oud-decaan FGGA Erwin Muller start op 1 april 2026 als staatsraad bij de Afdeling Advisering van de Raad van State.

The lecture series “Humanity in the Automated State” held its second session on January 12, 2026, at Leiden Law School. Dr. Aya Rizk from Linköping University brought her expertise on Information Systems whit a focus on how digital technologies and data drive organizational change, particularly in decision-making…

The lecture series

The lecture series “Humanity in the Automated State” continued on February 12, 2026, at Leiden Law School with Professor Madalina Busuioc of VU Amsterdam, a public governance scholar, AI-DG Lab co-director, MSc programme founder, and recipient of a European Research Council grant.

Students from the Coornhert Lyceum from Haarlem visited the Babylab Leiden together with their teacher Roos Bannenberg. The 5-VWO students follow modules of 10 weeks for science orientation and they had difficulty imagining what research with babies looks like. The Babylab Leiden gave a solution.

Distance, distance and distance again. That’s the motto of this week’s Orientation Week Leiden (OWL) for international students. And the OWL might be on a small scale, but fun is being had nonetheless.

Around 1,300 Leideners found 2,265 species during the Expeditie Stadsnutuur urban biodiversity inventory. ‘It’s been a huge success’, says scientific coordinator Frederic Lens.

Leiden University’s Campus the Hague is soon to expand into the Central Innovation District in the centre of The Hague. Plans are under way for a Campus boulevard with a new University building in the area between the Prins Bernhardviaduct and Schedeldoekshaven.

By the time you read this message, it will already be February. But since this is our first newsletter of the year, I still feel compelled to wish all of you a very happy New Year!

Having served on the Executive Board for over nine years, the last five of which as Rector Magnificus, Hester Bijl will leave Leiden University at the start of next year. In a new step in her career, she will become Rector Magnificus on the Executive Board of Delft University of Technology (TU Delft)…

Carlo Beenakker has been appointed a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the organisation behind the journal Science. Among the Fellows, he is the third Dutch person and first Leiden researcher.

Comparison between babies and song-birds when they are learning a non-existent language—a study of this kind has never been tried before. But this is what Claartje Levelt, Carel ten Cate (Leiden University) and Jelle Zuidema (University of Amsterdam) are attempting.

For the first time, Leiden University has made it to the top 10 of the UI Green Metric, a global sustainability ranking for universities. Of the 780 participating universities, Leiden has taken seventh place.

The university campus at Leiden Bio Science Park will change rapidly over the next few years. A short film shows the transformation to a full campus. See what this mix of new university buildings, student accommodation and restaurants and cafés will look like. And sustainability and biodiversity won’t…

Overview of all dissertations published by PhD candidates from CML.

Plants not only sense when they are touched, but they can also adapt to it. For example, by strengthening or defending themselves. But how do plants do this? The Green TE (Green Tissue Engineering) consortium has been granted a Gravitation grant of almost 23 million euros to investigate exactly this…

Get to know us through our online and in-person event for prospective students!

The need for novel drugs as well as innovations in their development and application is as urgent as ever. Below we present our vision , mission, and our key research areas.

This week, Leiden University celebrates the fifteenth year of its world-class International Criminal Law Summer School. The International Criminal Law Summer School has convened every year since the creation of the International Criminal Court, guiding scholars and practitioners in this rapidly developing…

Over the past few months, students and staff from the Faculty of Humanities have produced many wonderful podcasts - perfect for listening during a long walk or while preparing the Christmas dinner.

Leiden University and the Beijing Institute of Technology will be collaborating in the area of computer science teaching and research. One of the first outcomes of this collaboration will be a joint four-year bachelor's programme. Willem te Beest, Vice-President of the Executive Board, and Professor…

A sustainable building that is both sports and examination centre. In September, a design team including architect Atelier PRO will begin to develop the plans for the new University Sports Centre (USC). Construction will begin in 2021, and the building is expected to be completed before September 2022.…

Xander Tielens, Professor of Physics and Chemistry of the Interstellar Space, has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant to study polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in space. The combination of astronomical observations, computer models and lab research makes the research highly interdisciplinary.

Who assembled the collections of museums? The answer to this question seems to point to men as collectors. Apart from for rare exceptions, female collectors hardly seem to exist. Yet there were indeed women collectors. For the project Museums, Collections and Society, researcher Holly O'Farrell will…

A new online platform makes it possible to estimate the state of agricultural crops and nature area’s around the world. This enables scientists and other users to consistently combine observations of different satellites for the first time.

The DARE research seminar took place on May 16, 2019 in the Kamerlingh Onnes Building. DARE stands for Dutch Academy of Research in Entrepreneurship (http://www.dare-research.nl) and its members are Dutch researchers in the area of entrepreneurship. Once or twice a year DARE organizes a research seminar…

In our European and International Business Law Advanced Master programme, you learn to decipher the hierarchy of European & international business law

The specialisations Art History and Museum Studies both engage in critical perspectives and in current practices and the development of a professional network. The specialisation Art History puts emphasis on the analysis of art works within a museal and curatorial context. Our courses, taught by art…

The specialisation Museum Studies focuses on the art museum and places it in an artistic, cultural, social and political context. Our courses, taught by art historians and museum experts, reflect on the latest academic debates and the latest insights from the working field.

Leiden University’s Rector Magnificus, Professor Hester Bijl, has been reappointed for a second term by the Board of Governors.

Australian cell biologist Melissa Little and Dutch physicist Robbert Dijkgraaf will each be awarded an Honorary doctorate at the Dies Natalis of Leiden University in February 2019. They are receiving these awards for their services to science.

The Dutch X-omics Initiative has received seventeen million euros from NWO as part of the National Roadmap for Large-Scale Infrastructure. Leiden University’s metabolomics research led by Thomas Hankemeier is one of the participators.

What effect did the lockdown have on young people? Leiden researchers started a study of this in the first year of the covid pandemic. They discovered an impact on the development of the brain areas involved in social behaviour. The researchers published their discovery in Scientific Reports at Nat…

How did the Arabs manage to maintain an empire based on Islamic principles for three hundred years? Arab expert Petra Sijpesteijn and her team will be examining this question over the coming five years, focusing on the correspondence of ordinary people. The research is being funded by an ERC Consolidator…

Leiden University has climbed to 24th place in the UI Green Metric, an international sustainability ranking for universities. This puts Leiden University among the top 6% of high-scoring universities worldwide. 719 universities from 81 countries took place in the ranking.

This three-year programme offers you a unique chance to gain a specialised qualification in a rich, valuable area of knowledge, plus the freedom to tailor the programme to your own ambitions. And what better place to study than in Leiden, the international centre of Dutch studies?