Professor Michiel Kreutzer has been appointed as Dean of the Faculty of Science at Leiden University. He will take up the role on 1 January 2020. At present, he is Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Director of Education at the Faculty of Applied Sciences at Delft University of Technology.…

On International Women’s Day 2020, the first edition of the Leiden Top 50 was revealed, a list of 50 women who made a difference in Leiden in 2019. Among them three women from our Faculty: Martina Vijver, Felienne Hermans and Irene Groot.

Last week, on 13 February 2019, the EU approved the ban on pulse trawling. This followed the vote for a ban by the European Parliament on 16 January 2018. Half of the 84 Dutch pulse trawling vessels must stop immediately; the other half will receive a transitional arrangement until July 2021. Outcomes…

Lions limit their prey, such as zebra and gnu, in their options for adapting to global warming. This is what Leiden researcher Michiel Veldhuis, from the Institute of Environmental Sciences, and a group of international colleagues have discovered. The research was published today in Nature Ecology &…

In the Port of Rotterdam, tiny industrial pellets leak into the environment, causing a form of pollution that’s hard to trace but highly persistent. Three students of the LDE Sustainability Honours Programme took on the challenge to identify sources of this pollution.

A systematic approach to quantify impacts of food consumption on animal welfare has been developed by researchers of the Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University in collaboration with ETH Zurich, and effective altruism organizations.

A better environment starts at the Living Lab. Leiden Scientists investigate the effect of chemical compounds on biodiversity in 38 natural ditches. The official opening took place on 8 June.

The National Bee Count initiative of Professor Koos Biesmeijer (Naturalis/Leiden) and Vincent Kalkman (Naturalis) has received the NWO Communication Initiative Award. The jury praises the initiative, which manages to reach a very wide and diverse audience, while at the same time contributing to the…

Being an assistant professor can be rather solitary. You often do not have your own research group and also you don't yet have the extensive network of associate professors or professors. The Young Academy aims to change just that. The first edition of the Young Faculty of Science lunch in June was…

In September 2019, the first students will start the new master's programme Governance of Sustainability. The programme has received an official accreditation from the Accreditation Organisation of The Netherlands and Flanders.

A wide range of metals need to be mined for solar panels, wind turbines and batteries. But the overall mining activity is set to decrease as clean energy replaces fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas.

A new study in Nature Plants has explored the most important organising principles that control vegetation behaviour. The insights from this study can be used to improve predictions on climate change. Leiden scientists Peter van Bodegom and Nadia Soudzilovskaia participated in the study.

How do you combine the growth of wind energy with the protection of vulnerable seabirds? With her master’s thesis on this delicate balance, Sofie Hajer won the 2025 Unilever Research Prize. Her work provides new insights into how ecology and policy can strengthen each other.

The world is becoming clogged with plastic, with tiny plastic particles found everywhere, from the oceans’ depths to the mountain tops, soil, plants, animals and even inside us. The question is: what harm, if any, are they causing? In a new article on The Conversation, environmental scientists Meiru…

On 22 January 2018, the Massive Open Online Course ’A Circular Economy of Metals: Towards a Sustainable Societal Metabolism’ kicks off. This course is developed and taught by associate professor Ester van der Voet.

A delegation from Leiden University visited Japan from 18 to 26 November to facilitate cooperation in research and teaching. The delegation also attended the signing of a twinning agreement between the cities of Leiden and Nagasaki and the opening of a bridge to Dejima, once literally the bridge between…

The climate crisis, the return of TB and the digitisation of cultural heritage. The Netherlands and Indonesia face many of the same challenges. A visit by a delegation from Leiden University to Indonesia at the end of June highlighted the benefits of cooperation.

From molecular ping-pong to cassava in the Amazon, and from extraterrestrial life to special antibodies. Twenty-five researchers from Leiden University have been awarded a Veni grant from the NWO. A grant of up to 250,000 euros will give them the opportunity to further elaborate their own ideas over…

On 11 March, pharmaceutical company Janssen received approval to launch its corona vaccine on the European market. This made Janssen the fourth company to be given the green light by the European Medicines Agency. As Lead of the Janssen Campus in the Netherlands, Biology alumnus Bart van Zijll Langhout…

The Department of Company Law and Financial Law provides education and conducts research in areas including company and corporate law, financial contract- and liability law, corporate governance, sustainability, Dutch and EU financial regulatory law, mergers and acquisitions, insolvency law, and international…

In 2025 hebben medewerkers en studenten van de Universiteit Leiden veel mooie prijzen ontvangen en belangrijke onderzoekssubsidies binnengehaald.

By working together with external social partners, the knowledge of our scientists finds its way into society.

Conferences, Workshops and Lectures showcasing research and tools in Digital Humanities.

In 2021 many of our students and staff won fantastic prizes and were awarded important research grants. This is our traditional review of these successes as the end of one year marks the beginning of another.

Leiden University regularly confers honorary doctorates, and presents awards and prizes.

On this page you will find an overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2023, as well as special appointments at Leiden University and other institutions.

On this page you will find an overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2025, as well as special appointments at Leiden University and other institutions.

Twenty years onwards, in a review of an Escher exhibition in Italy, Nature Physics writes about it again: Leiden mathematicians helping Escher out. A reconstruction of how emeritus professor Hendrik Lenstra tracked down a 44-year-old problem.

Teaching during the corona crisis, the high workload and the challenges faced by the Faculty of humanities. In an online working visit to Leiden University on 12 October, Minister for Education, Culture and Science, Ingrid van Engelshoven, discussed the hot topics of the day with the Executive Board,…

Thanks to the virtual girl Sweetie created by Terre des Hommes, more than a thousand men who had webcam sex have been identified worldwide. They thought they were chatting with a ten-year-old girl. Whether that is punishable by law depends on the country, Leiden legal experts conclude.

Gravitation programme grant Co-applicants Bernet Elzinga en Andrea Evers are two of the captains of the six teams, all led by main applicant Anita Jansen, Maastricht University.

In otherwise energetic desserts at the bottom of the sea, researchers have found oases where microbes can harvest energy. Remarkably, the microbes first have to be buried under starving conditions for 80,000 years. An international group of researchers, amongst them José Mogollón from the Insitute of…

With a self-converted red camper van, biologists and twin brothers Kevin and Marvin Groen go on a nature adventure in Eastern Europe. Together, they search for wild animals, beautiful nature and places to sport. From a long search for a bear in the Slovakian wilderness to the discovery that pelicans…

For the first time, students were able to develop their skills using a digital platform in Brightspace. It turned out to be a success: on average students who actively used the platform on achieved higher grades than students who used it less. But above all, the students themselves were pleased with…