Teaching at Leiden University is closely interwoven with scientific research. Our teaching methods make use of technological innovations, our lecturers share their knowledge with one another and they are constantly alert to possibilities for innovation and depth in their teaching.

This dissertation explores the history of the language of a manuscript known as Tönnies Fonne's Russian-German Phrasebook (Pskov 1607).

A number of developments within and outside the University make it necessary to treat the issue of innovation with greater urgency. An overview of these developments is given below.

Technological advances, such as virtual reality, augmented reality and online assessment platforms are rapidly improving. These tools could potentially contribute to neuropsychological assessment that is more efficient and of higher quality.

Studying with an app and exploratory learning in large groups. Two educational innovations that will be possible thanks to the Comenius Programme of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Chemist Ludo Juurlink and Professor of Science Education Fred Janssen from the Leiden Graduate…

A number of calls for proposals have been launched to finance innovative educational projects. An overview is given below.

How do you keep students’ attention when you have to compete with digital distractions like Facebook? What skills do you need in today’s rapidly changing world? Teachers attended a congress on innovative teaching on 23 November.

On 7 July 2020 medical lecturer Luuk Willems received his SKO certificate (Senior Teaching Qualification) and may now officially call himself a senior lecturer. The course has meant that he now has clear ideas about what he wants to achieve in his teaching. ‘I want to strengthen my role as a coach and…

Treatment and care for cancer patients is becoming increasingly advanced. For example, surgeons can now perform operations with much greater precision, and therapeutic vaccines are being developed to prompt the patient’s immune system to fight cancer. Work is also being done on better early diagnostics,…

The focus of health care is rapidly changing. The need for maximum gains with minimal input requires tailored health care strategies and an ever more explicit evaluation of health benefits for the patient.

Three lecturers from Leiden University have each been awarded a €50,000 Comenius Teaching Fellows grant to implement an educational innovation project. They are Carlijn Bergwerff (Education and Child Studies), Francesco Ragazzi (Political Science) and Krista Murchison (Centre for the Arts in Society…

Determined, innovative lecturers are the driving force behind our teaching. Alexandra Langers, a specialist in gastroenterology and hepatology at the LUMC, is an active educator, both within and outside the hospital. She passed the Senior Teaching Qualification at the end of last year. ‘I want to cultivate…

The topics of discussion included multiple choices questions, research on teaching, workload and many other things. On 29 October four new enthusiastic fellows were installed in the Leiden Teachers’ Academy and presented their research innovation projects.

The Leiden University College (LUC) education team behind The Learning Mindset (TLM) has received 800,000 euro’s during the Dutch Higher Education Award Ceremony 2022. The LUC team was second behind Universteit Twente. The prize was awarded during the annual Comenius Festival of the Comenius Network.…

Vice-Rector Simone Buitendijk doesn’t believe for a single moment that Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are just hype. This is what she said on 13 March at Campus the Hague’s InspirationLab on ‘Open Education’. Buitendijk wants Leiden University to be at the leading edge. ‘MOOCs and online innovation…

On 11 and 19 April, the International Leiden Leadership Programme students got together to participate in a Business Game: a simulation game where the participants get a business case-study they have to solve. The goal? An agreement between all stakeholders – but most importantly: to employ the different…

There are not many classes in which students can talk about their fears, self-critique, or their own happiness. In the Bachelor Honours Class ‘Personal Flourishing and Happiness’, this is exactly the plan.

How to deal with the most challenging design question of your life: what do I want to be when I grow up? The ‘Designing Your Life’ method teaches students how to craft their own future. The project will start next academic year, thanks to a Comenius grant. ‘Everyone interested should be able to borrow…

Niloufar Rahim, from Afghanistan, fled to the Netherlands with her family. She studied medicine in Leiden and now shares her knowledge with students of medicine in Afghanistan.

The Minor in Teaching was introduced in 2009 as a new initiative to introduce and prepare bachelor students for teaching. Student numbers are low, however, especially of mathematics and science students.

What are the various forms of inter-organizational collaboration in the public safety sector? How are different forms of inter-organizational collaborative arrangements related? What is the relationship between inter-organizational collaboration and innovation in the public safety sector?

Co-ordination Action for Innovation in Life-Cycle Analysis for Sustainability: deepening, broadening and leaping forward the LCA methodology.

On 29 October, seven innovative lecturers from different faculties will join the existing ten fellows of the Leiden Teachers' Academy. The current fellows have been engaged for the past year in implementing their innovation projects. How are these progressing?

Putting our interns to work’ is the third-year slogan for the Master’s Programme in Medicine at Leiden University. After their regular residency periods, students are encouraged to find an internship in demanding sectors where they would like to work after completing their studies. In the MasterMindsChallenge,…

Carina van den Hoven defended her thesis on 16 February 2017.

The Senior Teaching Qualification is for experienced lecturers who have done more than lecturing alone. Ten quotes from the first ten lecturers to receive the STQ award.

This autumn Leiden University is launching eight new MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) that are available free to the general public. You can follow courses on the theory of evolution, mindfulness, political economy, international law, music, cultural heritage or archaeology.

To what end and how does Plautus constantly underline the Helleni(sti)c provenance of his art? How does this aspect relate the author’s originality?

The Master of Medicine at Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) has won the national biennial award for best educational innovation in medical teaching. It was awarded the prize by the Netherlands Association for Medical Education (NVMO) for its MasterMinds Challenge (MMC).

The LUMC is the first medical institution in the world to offer a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on clinical kidney and pancreas transplantation.

In their third year, students of International Studies get their teeth into difficult issues put forward by government and businesses such as Unilever and the World Food Programme. Students who take part gain valuable experience.

The objective of this project is to show how teacher research can encourage teachers’ learning process as professionals, improve teaching practices and generate knowledge about these practices.

Covid-19 has had a huge impact on teaching at universities over the past two years. Through force of circumstances, lecturers have adapted much faster to a digital future. On 7 June Leiden Teachers Academy’s annual Education Festival (working language is English) will present insights on this ‘new n…

The eight ambitions of Leiden University's vision on education - Learning@LeidenUniversity - were the key theme of the packed Education Festival on 19 June. More than 200 lecturers and students came to PLNT, Leiden's innovation hotspot, for inspiration and best practices in the field of educational…

How did the medieval manuscript develop as a physical object during the Twelfth Century Renaissance and what do these changes tell us about the intellectual culture of the period?

This dissertation set out to provide both an integrated framework for the practices of teacher peer feedback and an in-depth understanding of teacher peer feedback in the Chinese vocational education context.

Students of the minor in Innovation, Cocreation and Global Impact present their idealistic projects. Watch the film!

How is collaborative learning in teacher education designed and implemented? How do students experience those collaborative learning assignments? What aspects of the design and the implementation lead to which perceived learning outcomes?

Lecturer in Old and Middle English Thijs Porck was awarded the annual Leiden University Student Platform (LUS) Teaching Prize at the opening of the academic year. The jury praised his endless supply of innovative teaching ideas.

Thanks to Ian Cook’s ‘Who Made My Clothes?’ MOOC, thousands of students have researched where their clothes come from. How does this geographer from the University of Exeter manage to inspire such enthusiasm in his students? He and his student Zahra Ali will explain all during the Education Festival…

It was time for a celebration in the Faculty Club on 11 December. Twenty driven lecturers were awarded their Senior Teaching Qualification by Vice-Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl.

Until last year the Archaeology Field Techniques programme for first-year students consisted of a number of two-hour lectures. Now they spend a whole day on the programme. Assistant professor Jasper de Bruin is enthusiastic about this new approach. ‘You can do a lot more with the students, and that…

How do I conduct research? How do I structure, conduct and record what I’ve thought of and done? The Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences Programme didn’t just want students to perform a series of tests for the Cellular Biochemistry practical course. After a complete re-vamp - ‘From traditional cookbook lab…

How can legal education in Indonesia become more relevant for graduates who will work in contexts of legal pluralism, aiming for social justice and providing legal services that common citizens need?

The research reported in this thesis is concerned with the knowledge development of a small sample of experienced science teachers in the context of a broad innovation in Dutch secondary education, including the introduction of a new syllabus on Public Understanding of Science.

Five lecturers from Leiden University have received a Comenius teaching award. With the grants they can carry out an innovation project.

Zeger van der Wal, Professor by special appointment Ien Dales Chair at Leiden University, and Mehmet Akif Demircioglu, Assistant Professor ar the Lee Kuan Yen School of Public Policy, researched the effects of ethical culture and ethical leadership on realized innovation.

The Academy for Professionals project started in November. The project will focus on further developing existing and new educational programmes for professionals. ‘This is part of taking valorisation seriously.’

Luckily we’ve been able to meet up on campus again for a few months now after two years of mainly online teaching. Alongside the inconvenience, enforced digitalisation has brought us valuable innovations and smart tools. The question is: what’s going well and what could we do differently? I’d love to…

Previous studies have identified institutional, organizational, and individual factors that promote innovation in public organizations. Yet they have overlooked how the type of public administration—and the type of administrators—is associated with innovative attitudes.