On 19 June, the grounds of the Kamerlingh Onnes Building were transformed into LAWLANDS! It had everything: sun, music, science, beach, games, quizzes and, above all, an enthusiastic audience of staff and students.

At the end of the 7th century something curious occurs in Northwestern Europe. Suddenly, people start burying the dead next to their dwellings instead of in communal cemeteries. Professor Frans Theuws recently published a book on this phenomenon. ‘We wanted to know if the study of these farmyard burials…

A course that concludes with a video pitch, instead of a paper or examination: Italian Language and Culture students each recorded their own knowledge clip, speaking to a wide audience about Italian cultural expressions. We asked Goran Bouaziz, Cameron-May Bosch and Katja Timmer what they thought of…

Three projects affiliated with the university will receive grants from the Leids Mediafonds (Leiden Media Fund ed.). The money is to be spend on creating a journalistic production in collaboration with a local media partner.

The Guggenheim Fellowship is a prestigious award for US nationals. There are more than 3,000 applications every year, and this year only 188 were honoured. Professor Jonathan Silk is one of these 188, the first ever at Leiden University, and he tells us more about the fellowship and what he will do…

On 1 June 2022, Maarten Kunst, Professor of Criminology at Leiden Law School, gave a lecture on his research into the effects of the right to be heard on both the defendant and the victim. Victims have certain rights in the Dutch criminal process, including the right to be heard in criminal proceedings.…

Marc Broekema from the Department of Business Studies has received a grant from the Netherlands Institute of Registered Valuators (NiRV) to conduct research into how the value of a business is assessed in legal proceedings.

Since 1 November 2025, Prof. Dr. Luc Sels has been the new president of Leiden University's Executive Board. In a message to our university he introduces himself and shares his first impressions.

When are you (sexually) mature? A KNAW grant will enable associate professor Rafal Matuszewski to organise an interdisciplinary workshop on this question.

Sustainable biotechnology, new insights into genome evolution and combining forces in mathematics. The NWO has awarded grants to these three innovative Leiden research projects in the ENW-M Open Competition.

Everything is peaceful again in and around the Wijnhaven building at Campus The Hague. Earlier today, the location was the scene of a large pro-Palestinian protest. Lectures were cancelled. In the end, everyone left the building voluntarily.

Assistant professor Stephanie Noach has won the Dissertation Prize of the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation. She is receiving this prestigious prize for her research on darkness in contemporary art from Latin America and the Caribbean.

There was a time when student Lelani Antar wanted to go to film school. She ended up studying International Studies, yet she didn’t quite say goodbye to film. For her minor, she and three other students made an essay film.

Amsterdam’s attitude to sex work, politeness in historical Arabic letters and malaria in the Middle Ages: again this year, there was a wide variety of topics in the Research Traineeship programme. On Friday 30 August, the trainees finished the last of these projects for now.

No more smelly lorries disposing of building waste or delivering building materials to the centre of Leiden. That’s Leiden University’s ambition for its future renovation or construction projects in the city centre. Electric boats should make the process cleaner and less inconvenient for the people…

CADS lecturer Sander Hölsgens is one of the initiators of the NWO Smart Culture Project Documenting Complexity (project number CISC.KC.212). This project investigates how and why engaged documentary filmmakers use new technologies in their work. One of the outputs of this project is the series ‘In Whose…

External PhD candidate Liselore Tissen has been appointed ambassador for Leiden City of Science. As the youngest member and the only non-professor in the network, she will be working to raise Leiden's prominence as a city of science.

Eva Lammers is currently studying for a master's degree in labour law at Leiden University and expects to graduate in autumn 2023. Lammers did her internship at law firm JPR in Deventer and was thrown in at the deep end from the start. 'Assignments aren’t arranged for you, you've got to arrange them…

Jelle van Buuren, university lecturer at ISGA, discusses the role that social media played in the storming of the Capitol last Wednesday

Edmund Flett, alumnus of the International Relations master's programme, has won the 2023 J.C. Baak Prize for his thesis ‘Settlements now, settlement later. Land swaps, settler relocation, and the viability of the two-state solution in Israel-Palestine’.

Leiden University opened the doors of its new Living Room on Thursday 16 February. The Living Room is a home from home where Dutch and international students can relax and meet others and is a strictly no-study zone.

As of 1 October Rob van Nieuwpoort is the new professor of Efficient Computing and eScience at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS). Van Nieuwpoort brings with him a wealth of expertise: he is an expert in eScience, high performace computing and advanced algorithms.

The Schoof cabinet has presented its budget. As expected, higher education is facing severe cuts. In the coming period, the Executive Board will regularly look at the consequences of what it deems an irresponsible policy.

The Babylab, part of the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) and SSH Labs infrastructure, has recently introduced a new eye tracking device for conducting research into first language acquisition.

Leiden University offers one full Leiden University Excellence Scholarship (LExS) to an African candidate interested in the two-year Research Master African Studies programme (ResMA AS); thus non-EEA/non-EFTA* applicants. LExS is a prestigious scholarship and includes a fee waiver up until the statutory…

Suzan Verberne has been appointed professor of Natural Language Processing at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) from 1 October. Verberne has been at LIACS since 2017 as group leader of the Text Mining and Retrieval group.

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)…

We are pleased to announce that Lidwien will continue to fulfil the role of Student Assessor within the Faculty of Archaeology's Board next academic year. Since her start in September last year, building on her previous experience in the Education Committee, she has continued to develop into a connecting…

Paul Gobée (LUMC), Kirsty Rolfe (Humanities) and Frank Takes (Science) have been nominated for the Leiden Teaching Prize 2023.

Education, Social

Organisation

Professor of Brain, Safety and Resilience Anne-Laura van Harmelen has been nominated for the Huibregtsen Prize. The winner of the prize will be announced on the Evening of Science & Society (4 October).

The Schoof cabinet has presented its budget. As expected, higher education is facing severe cuts. In the coming period, the Executive Board will regularly look at the consequences of what it deems an irresponsible policy.

As the deadline for choosing a region of study dwells on International Studies Students, on October 28th, the yearly Area Fair was held. Students could walk around the Schouwburgstraat building as presentations, stands filled with snacks from the area, and workshops were being offered.

Leiden University is working hard to make its buildings more sustainable, also on the Humanities Campus. An important step in this context is the construction of a Thermal Energy Storage (TES) system. Following the successful completion of the first phase, in which the Herta Mohr building was connected…

The sixth edition of the lecture series Duurzaamheid & Recht was held during the last semester. Once again, it attracted many students.

Prof. dr. Pancras Hogendoorn is stepping down as dean of the Faculty of Medicine and vice-chair of the Executive Board of Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC). He is also resigning from all associated secondary posts. Hogendoorn has taken his decision in anticipation of the findings of an inquiry…

The 'Groot Nederlands Student Kampioenschap' student games have been held for the first time in two cities, Delft and The Hague. To make this happen our Campus The Hague worked together with The Hague University of Applied Sciences and Inholland University of Applied Sciences. Three students look back…

What are the benefits for us of collaboration with Chinese partners? What sparks off Leiden researchers' interest in collaborating with colleagues in China? Leiden University shows in three short films what joint projects are like.

In 2021 the Leiden Osteoarchaeology Lab hosted an international workshop on methods to study past physical activity. It aimed to tackle a niche topic with the field: namely the method of studying muscle attachments to bone. Dr Sarah Schrader, one of the organisers of the workshop: ‘You can quantify…

On February 15th 2018 former students in Methodology & Statistics (M&S) of Leiden University share their current and previous professional activities to provide M&S students an insight into their career perspectives.

Philosophy alumna Naomi Rebekka Boekwijt returns to Leiden University on 20 June to present her latest novel Stemmen (Voices) in Plexus. ‘I wanted to show that things could be done differently in psychiatric care.’

Saskia van Otterloo works as a policy advisor on climate adaptation at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management in the Netherlands. She graduated in 2015 with a bachelor's degree in cultural anthropology and development sociology. How does her knowledge of anthropology help her in her job…

An international team of astronomers has shown that a white dwarf and a red dwarf orbiting each other every two hours are emitting radio pulses. Through the discovery, astronomers now know that the monopoly on bright radio bursts is not solely held by neutron stars. The team of international scientists…

Today, 13 May 2024, Leiden University’s Executive Board is publishing the advice of the committee that investigated reports of unacceptable behaviour and breaches of academic integrity. These reports were about a professor from the university and their partner (a former member of the university staf…

On 1 October 2024, Dr Jiska Engelbert was appointed as professor by special appointment on the Ien Dales Chair ‘Government as an Employment Organisation’. Her focus is on leadership in digital transitions, digital innovations, and the transformation of public services, with particular attention to local…

Prof. J. (Jos) Schaeken, Professor of Slavic and Baltic Languages and Cultural History, will be the interim Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Humanities from 1 March 2025. He will succeed the present Vice-Dean, Mirjam de Baar, who will complete her second term on that date.

Academics are increasingly facing threats, harassment and hate speech following public appearances. The Dutch universities – united in the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU) – is now adopting a number of national measures, from a zero-tolerance policty to psychosocial help for vic…

Herman Paul (professor of History of the Humanities) has been elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). He will be officially installed on 30 September.

On behalf of trade union FNV, Egbert Jongen and Heike Vethaak from Leiden University conducted a study on income distribution over the past 40 years. Dutch national media outlets have given extensive news coverage to their study.