Learn the newest insights from established researchers.

The Move-In Days will take place on 15-16 August 2026.

Find your home at LUC! We are located at the heart of The Hague. With our own campus building and international profile, LUC creates an environment for those looking for an intercultural experience and who wish to become responsible global citizens.

We would like to present to you a simple guidebook about living a sustainable life as a student in the cities of Leiden and The Hague. Whether you are a first-year student still trying to find your way around or already doing your masters – students wanting to explore more sustainable options and save…

For international students who want to not only develop true fluency in Dutch language, but also dive into the culture, history and mindset of the Netherlands, there is no better place Leiden University's bachelor's programme in Dutch Studies!

The two-year programme is a challenging combination of general advanced courses, practical modules such as teaching assistance and conferences/workshops, a personal course profile, and research.

This one-year, English-taught Master's programme offers insights on general developments as well as the specific challenges in the field of the governance of crisis and security, with in-depth knowledge of sub-fields of crisis and security management.

The laboratory of Leiden researcher Alireza Mashaghi is the first in the world to implement a quantum biosensor installation from QT-Sense. This enables the detection of extremely rapid and almost imperceptible changes in cells, providing essential insights for treating diseases.

The Graduate School of Social and Behavioural Sciences in collaboration with the Department of Methodology and Statistics and researchers in the field of Methodology and/or Statistics of the other Institutes provides training courses for PhD candidates and other researchers.

The two-year Research Master's in Linguistics at Leiden University combines leading expertise with a flexible curriculum covering the full range of contemporary linguistic inquiry. It trains students to develop the theoretical grounding and methodological versatility required to design and conduct original…

The combination of global questions and a wide range of local sources characterizes the Leiden University Institute for History.

Leiden Observatory is the astronomical institute of the Faculty of Science of Leiden University.

The fragmentary is everywhere: we encounter fragments in social media (Tiktok, Twitter), in personal memories from our childhood, and in traditions from our cultural heritage.

A collaboration led by psychologist Joanne Mouthaan won second prize at the Dutch Education Awards on 25 June. The team will receive €800,000 to develop and implement the National Suicide Prevention Skills Learning Pathway for Psychology Students.

Professor of Bio-organic Chemistry Hermen Overkleeft develops innovative methods to study disease processes. This increases our understanding of the human body and enables the development of new medicines. Overkleeft has been awarded the Spinoza Prize: the most prestigious scientific award in the Ne…

With a MSc in LST you are well prepared for a wide range of career opportunities. Life Science research and business is one of the fastest growing economic activities worldwide.

What you see is what you get, is how people who know him describe Mark Rutgers who became Dean of our Faculty on 1 March. For some of us he is a familiar face, and for those who don’t yet know him, he hopes to get to meet them soon. His first three months will be taken up with a lot of reading and even…

‘We’ve come because our granddaughter started studying archaeology here this year. But I’m really interested in archaeology too.’ The Open Day at the Faculty of Archaeology on 12 October was a field day for archaeology fans: workshops, lectures, activities for children and a pub quiz that covered the…

Lotte van Dillen has every confidence in the Executive Board of new-style Institute Psychology. ‘If we work on the basis of everyone’s good intentions, we’re going to do great.’ If you lack confidence, you’re not the kind of person to jump on your bike and go off to Sicily. Want to find out more about…

In the civil war in Syria, the country's cultural heritage is also under threat. There have been further acts of vandalism in Palmyra and many of the city's museums have been looted. Leiden archaeologist Olivier Nieuwenhuijse's Focus Raqqa project aims to make a digital inventory of the plundered archaeology…

Dear colleagues and students,

Ratna Saptari is since 2007 Assistant Professor at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology. She has always been involved with issues of human rights and Indonesian workers' rights. This August she retired. But she won't sit still. She continues her voluntary work and wants to…

Patients who can’t afford medicine. Refugees who need help. Expats who are ill. All alongside research into obesity. Having trained as a doctor, Dennis Mook-Kanamori chose the hard reality of life as a GP together with a job as a researcher at the LUMC.

Leiden University has an active open science community. Open science means transparency in all phases of research by precisely documenting every step of the way and making this publicly available. ‘It’s time to be open,’ say psychologists Anna van ’t Veer and Zsuzsika Sjoerds. There is increasing awareness…

He was so disappointed that he couldn't go on that archaeological field trip to the Caribbean, he spent most of his time at his computer working on his dissertation instead. But that didn't keep him from gaming from time to time, a personal passion that ultimately led to his current job. Since February…

From a lovely blossoming garden in Barcelona, Eduard Fosch Villaronga is talking enthusiastically about his postdoc at Leiden University. Due to the corona lockdown, he is currently spending the 2020 summer at his mother’s place, but he is looking forward to returning to Leiden (and to the Dutch bit…

Jan Joosten studied civil and tax law in Leiden from 1985. After exchanges and an internship, he became infatuated with the United States. He is now a partner and co-founder of a new law firm in New York: Pierson Ferdinand.

Mark Rutte: an exceptional politician whose time was up. What are the consequences of Rutte’s departure. Experts from Leiden University give their view on this political event.

The launch meeting of the Leiden Islam Academy on 7 December in the Academy Building drew just the right audience: a diverse group of people who were all in some way engaged with Islam. This was just what the directors of the Academy, Maurits Berger and Fatiha Azzarhouni, were hoping for.

The new Executive Board of the Institute of Psychology became effective on 1 February 2022. Scientific director Andrea Evers tells us where she gets her energy from.

A very special occasion for the Dual PhD Centre. Vasileios P. Karakasis is the 25th PhD candidate in the history of the Dual PhD Centre, combining work with PhD research at Leiden University. Karakasis will defend his dissertation: ‘Adding Fuel to the Conflict’ on 15 October. In this interview, he discusses…

Streptomycetes are similar to moulds, but these bacteria live in the soil. They are very popular in biotechnology because they produce a great many antibiotics and enzymes. Gilles van Wezel will be using his Vici subsidy to study ways of increasing their production.

Young Academy Leiden (YAL) will change its board this month and welcome six new members. Outgoing chair Rachel Plak and incoming chair Ahmed Mahfouz talk about what the platform has achieved for young academics over the past year and what the plans are for the future.

Student dean Romke Biagioni is committed to help students have an easygoing and pleasant time during their studies. She assists students with disabilities, looks for solutions to problems such as housing issues and counsels students with social or financial problems. For MSc student Computer Science…

Four master's students from Leiden University participated in this year’s edition of the International Migration and Refugee Law Moot Court, hosted by Antwerp University. Following the verbal rounds held between 21 and 22 March, the team went through to the finals, achieving second place overall.

How do local, non-institutional ideas about end-of-life care influence professional palliative care and vice versa? These questions will be answered by medical anthropologists Annemarie Samuels and Natashe Lemos Dekker in the coming years.

Graduates Bruno and Plym took part in the National Think Tank last year. Together with 20 other students and recent graduates, they spent four months pondering the future of our digital society. ‘You learn so much in the space of four months, not just practical skills but also about yourself.’

The Dutch universities as a whole are lobbying for a 'normal' academic year from the end of August, where on-campus teaching will be possible. It's a view that Leiden University shares. Rector Hester Bijl talks about what teaching will be like then. She also looks back on a year of lockdown.

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…

Rower Boudewijn Röell (31) already has one Olympic medal, but he's hoping to win another in Tokyo. 'At some point, though, you do have to stop.' Easier said than done in a time of corona.

Physicist Diego Garlaschelli co-authored an extensive review in the journal Nature Reviews Physics. Surprisingly, the subject wasn't physics at all, but the networks of banks and other financial institutions, and the way their structure relates to financial crises.

This month's flash interview is with alumna Sytske Besemer, Criminologist, who works at a startup called Cradle. Sytske has specifically chosen to work for a company with societal impact. And she is about to move again, this time to Zürich.

Minims are letters that are made up of short, vertical pen strokes, such as 'm', 'i', 'n' and 'u'. In Gothic script, there is often little distinction between letters composed of minims. Assistant professor of medieval literature Krista Murchison has written an article in History Today on the hidden…

Over the past 40 days people in Bulgaria been demonstrating against the deep-rooted corruption in the country. The anger of the protesters is directed predominantly at the government of Prime Minister Borisov. But not all arrows are aimed at their own leaders, some are also pointing towards Brussels.…

Team Leiden L’expert has won the 12th edition of the NVER Moot Court competition 2019. The moot court is organised each year by the Dutch Association for European Law (NVER) and was held this year at Leiden University.

Researchers from Leiden, in cooperation with Philips, have won a challenge in which international research groups dedicate themselves to accelerating MRI scans with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). They developed an algorithm with which it is possible to use eight times less data than normal…

Individual molecules are extremely hard to see through feeble fluorescence. Tiny gold nanorods serve as new antennas to intensify their signal 500 times. Publication on 24 February in Angewandte Chemie.