Her part-time job as a city guide in Dordrecht opened Lotte Hamm's eyes: not business administration, but history was her dream study. This semester she starts her bachelor's degree.

The final design of the Aleida Nijland has been completed. The spaces in the new faculty building have been allocated to the future users, and several sessions have taken place in which staff and students were able to contribute ideas about the interior. With each step, the Aleida Nijland is taking…

In this article we share the experiences of a student who used Siggie for Students. The online coaching platform for students that is paid for students at FGGA. Find out if Siggie can be of help to you too.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers from 15 departments at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) realised they could do more for patients if they joined forces. This is how the BEAT-COVID group has been able to rapidly gain knowledge about COVID-19, the role of the immune system and…

Leiden researchers Reinout Vriesendorp, Jessie Pool, and Harold Koster from the Department Corporate Law and Jan Adriaanse and Marc Broekema from the Department Business Studies are about to start a collaboration with Groningen University. The WODC (the knowledge centre in the field of the Dutch Ministry…

Leiden biologists have found a mutation in flour beetles that allows them to speed up their development. The study has been published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Leiden University can build an alternative Humanities Campus on its own available land at the current location in the city. This is the conclusion of a feasibility study and is what the mayor and aldermen of Leiden write in a letter to the city council.

As of 1 September , Karel Berkhoff has been appointed professor by special appointment in Ukrainian History. In this position, made possible in part by the KNAW, he will focus primarily on dark moments in recent Ukrainian history: the persecutions that have taken place in the first half of the twentieth…

Dark matter. Something invisible that, according to calculations, comprises about 85% of the matter in the universe. With an ERC Advanced Grant of €2.5 million, Professor of Observational Cosmology Henk Hoekstra will map out even more precisely where this dark matter is to be found.

We catched up with Annette Righolt, Honours College coordinator at FGGA, about a grant, a new course and the new year.

The fact that scientists are increasingly better able to access molecular cell and tissue data also brings with it a new challenge: how can scientists find the information they need for research among the vast amount of data available?

What do scholars, the Netherlands Public Prosecution Service, the police, the National Rapporteur Human Trafficking, Victim Support Netherlands, and the Violent Offences Compensation Fund have in common? They all work with victims, each from their own expertise. High time to combine that knowledge,…

Teachers have to find a balance between routine and renewal of their teaching repertoire. Eveline de Boer (PhD student at ICLON) investigated how didactic building blocks can help them with this. Defence on June 15.

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…

As from April 2023 all students at Leiden University, Delft University of Technology and Erasmus University Rotterdam will start using the eduXchange portal to register for a minor.

Antoaneta Dimitrova, Professor Comparative Governance, presented the Cleveringa Lecture at the Vaclav Havel Library in Prague last week. We spoke to her about her experience.

Always wanted to go to a real art auction? Now’s your chance! On 15 February over a hundred works from the LUMC’s art collection will go under the hammer. ‘It’s great fun just to be there, regardless of whether you buy anything,’ says dean and auctioneer Pancras Hogendoorn.

The Leiden University Visual Ethnography collection has been added to Alexander Street Press, an educational streaming video service. The master’s specialization Visual Ethnography has supported many talented individuals to produce inspiring films. About 70 master’s thesis films of the past 8 years…

Gabrielle van den Berg became the Academic Director of LIAS on 1 September 2025: “I hope I’ll be able to make a real difference.”

We, the Executive Board and deans, have recently heard from different sources that the conflict between Israel and Hamas continues to evoke strong feelings of tension, anxiety and insecurity within our university community. We take this very seriously and so are once again addressing you all.

Michaël Peyrot has been appointed professor of Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics with retroactive effect from 1 January. He is looking forward to passing on his love for the subject to a new generation of students.

When do we say violence was used in an incident? The answer may seem obvious at first. But interim results from a study by Jolien van Breen show that Dutch people are labelling events in increasingly broad contexts as violent.

Understanding what our buildings and cities are made of is an important step in making them more sustainable. Industrial ecologist Tomer Fishman (CML) has received an ERC Starting Grant to map the construction materials used in buildings in the Global South. 'Without the data, you can't formulate po…

This month, ten teachers received a Senior Qualification Education (SKO), including Marcellus Ubbink and Daan van der Es from our faculty. Why did they go through the process of getting qualified, and should all teachers have an SKO?

Tijdens Leiden Revisited kregen alumni van de Rechtenfaculteit de mogelijkheid om zich weer even echt student te voelen. Dit jaar vond het evenement namelijk plaats in de (oude) vertrouwde collegebanken van het Kamerlingh Onnes Gebouw.

The fact that corona has created a wave of creativity is evident when walking around in the lab of pharmacologist Coen van Hasselt from the LACDR. Suddenly there were far fewer master's students permitted in the lab for their research. So Van Hasselt came up with smart solutions to enable lab work to…

Part of our social contact is currently online, with no physical proximity. Does digitalisation mean that we are losing an effective way of making contact with one another? This is what Reinoud Kaldewaij will be studying with a Veni subsidy from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). 'An issue that will…

Violent conflicts and civil wars in Chad impede most rural households' access to food security, agricultural activities and access to essential services such as health care. In her dissertation, Nakar Djindil Syntyche denounces this issue. She obtained her PhD on 24 November.

In this episode, we talk with Mariska Kret about the expressions of emotions in humans and animals. Mariska explores the similarities and differences in emotion expression in humans and primates. Want to learn more about Mariska's research and discover why it's important that we learn more about animal…

In this episode we talk with Mara van der Meulen about prosocial behaviour and social exclusion in children. Van der Meulen also explores the role of genetics and environment in the development of social behaviour. To find out more about her research on why some children are beter able to develop their…

Facility

During the second episode of this Leiden Law podcast, hosts Juli Wentholt and Ishana Badhai will talk with Tanja Masson-Zwaan about the latest developments in Space Law.

Last Friday, more than a dozen people died during the storming of Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla. A dramatic incident, but certainly not the first time that refugees and migrants have used force to try to enter Melilla.

LACDR is committed to preparing its PhD candidates and postdocs for their future in the best possible way. One of the activities for this is the annual PhD-Postdoc event focused on career prospects. This year’s event was held on March 4th, 2025.

De Universiteit Leiden vindt de aanpassing van het bindend studieadvies geen verstandig plan.

The PERSPECTIVE project looks to address the concept of successfulness. What does it mean to be the ‘perfect student’, to be 'successful' at university and later in life. It explores perfectionism, setting expectations, performance pressure and more.

Together with physiotherapist and lifestyle therapist Jaap Wonders of SMC Rijnland, Helen Pluut conducted research during the first COVID-19 wave on the experiences of working people. The reason for the research was the compulsory situation of working from home many people found themselves in. One of…

Op de tweede dag van de Orientation Week Leiden verwelkomden we ruim 300 internationale studenten in het Kamerlingh Onnes Gebouw. Ze werden ontvangen met een warm welkom van het faculteitsbestuur, en de traditionele stroopwafel.

Professor Nivja de Jong has been included in the list of most influential scientists by Elsevier Data Repository. This list of scientists with the highest impact is compiled annually based on citations. De Jong appears on the annual list for the third consecutive time.

A national walkout will be staged on Monday 13 May. Leiden Scholars for Palestine has called on students and staff from Leiden University to meet at 11.00 at the Lipsius building in Leiden and the Wijnhaven building in The Hague.

Facility

Leiderschap in een publieke organisatie is niet langer voorbehouden aan managers alleen. Daarnaast vereist modern leiderschap toepassing van een divers gedragsrepertoire. De manager van nu put daarvoor uit een gereedschapskist vol tools, betoogt Marieke van der Hoek, promovenda bij het Instituut Bestuurskunde…

8 April, we hosted our very first research day—an exciting beginning with more to come in the future. We were able to show how researchers and support staff collaborate to secure research grants, conduct studies in accordance with the latest rules and regulations, and tackle challenges head-on.

Microsoft’s new software VALL-E only has to hear a voice for three seconds to be able to imitate it almost perfectly. You can choose which emotion the voice should use and what it should say. Valerie Frissen, Professor by special appointment of Digital Technology and Social Change at eLaw, and Director…

At the Dies Natalis Willem Otterspeer, Professor Emeritus of University History, presented the fourth and final volume of Groepsportret met Dame, his series on the history of Leiden University. De 'Strategie van de Aanpassing' covers the period 1876-1975. Otterspeer talked about his book in a podcast…

Research

A presentation on the latest developments in artificial intelligence and law, several public lectures on Criminal Justice, and a brand new trial in which Leiden female serial killer ‘Goeie Mie’ was acquitted after all. It was all possible during Leiden European City of Science 2022. Below is an overview…

Education, Library, Research

Anne-Laura van Harmelen, professor Brain, Safety and Resilience will give her inaugural lecture ‘Resilience does not exist’ (in Dutch) on Monday 27 June. In her inaugural lecture she will discuss resilience after childhood adversity.

Professor Sjef Barbiers will be appointed Managing Director of the Institute for the Dutch Language (INT) with effect from 1 September 2025. He will step down as scientific director of LUCL as of that date.