You are a part of our academic community. Here at Leiden University, we pride ourselves on our motto Praesidium Libertatis – bastion of freedom – and cherish the tradition of academic freedom.

Debate

What does academic freedom mean? And how do we give shape to it in Leiden? The Academic Freedom Core Team considered these questions and presented its final report on 17 June.

On 5 May we celebrate freedom, a basic human right that should not be taken for granted. We asked international students and staff what it means to them.

How do you recount historic events if you are not allowed to talk about them? For his dissertation, Taufiq Hanafi tried to find out how a period of mass murder – despite heavy censorship – found a place in Indonesian literature. PhD defence 31 March.

Without academic freedom, we might not have antibiotics, nor a deep understanding of human behaviour. Literary criticism, climate models, and ecological restoration would be severely limited; just like ethical reflection on artificial intelligence, justice, trauma, parenting, faith and hope. All these…

On Tuesday 25 November, Leiden University is holding the first of four sessions on ‘Building Academic Freedom’. Students and staff are invited to a conversation about today’s hot-button issues.

Now that war is once again raging in Europe, the question of when you need to stand up against injustice has become more relevant than ever. In his Cleveringa lecture on 24 November historian Gert Oostindie will discuss why colonial domination was not regarded as an issue in Leiden for a long time.

Nadia Bouras will give the Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture on 6 March. She will call for academic freedom for everyone.

Leiden University has had a turbulent week. There have been protests inside and outside our buildings that have evoked reactions, and students and staff have felt unsafe. We want with this message to look back at the past week and look forward to the future. What happened and how do we now want to move…

Debate

Few people would associate the name Anton de Kom with Leiden. Yet the Surinamese freedom fighter is the subject of an exhibition at Museum De Lakenhal.

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…

Gert Oostindie, Emeritus Professor of Colonial and Postcolonial History, is this year’s Cleveringa Professor at Leiden University. He was appointed by the University on 4 October. In his inaugural lecture on 24 November, entitled Courage and Disregard, he will talk about (academic) freedom in relation…

Ten years ago, a new reward system was introduced in Dutch prisons: the only way prisoners could earn extra ‘freedoms’ was through good behaviour. Jan Maarten Elbers concludes that this system does little to encourage behavioural change and can even be counterproductive.

Symposium

Hester Bijl, the Rector Magnificus of Leiden University, was handed a ‘shockingly long list’ of names of missing Iranians in her office at the Administration and Central Services department on 13 December 2022.

A shepherd, but also a comparativist and historian with very broad interests. That is how Professor Philippe Buc describes himself. As of 1 August 2021, he will hold the chair of professor of Medieval History at the university. In an introductory interview, Buc introduces himself, his research and his…

How is academic freedom restricted by the academic community itself? This was the central question at a debate at Leiden University on 14 November.

Too expensive groceries, diseases suddenly breaking out: from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, hundreds of people documented the world around them in chronicles. A significant number of these texts have been digitised in recent years. Professor of Early Modern Dutch History and project leader…

Students for Palestine – a group of students from Leiden and The Hague – are holding a panel discussion in the Leiden University in The Hague Wijnhaven building on Tuesday 24 May entitled ‘Silencing Palestine’.

The freedom to be who you are – woman, man, homosexual, heterosexual, transgender, religious, atheist, and so on – is perhaps the Netherlands’ greatest attribute. The principle of equality and the right not to be discriminated against are in the very first article of our constitution. Yet there is a…

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

Rafal Matuszewski has been unanimously elected to the Board of the Young Academy of Europe.

Members of the End Fossil climate action group, including students from Leiden University, have occupied two rooms in the Lipsius building at the Faculty of Humanities today (23 November 2023).

The University Council meeting on 2 June was largely dominated by the demonstration, occupation and policing in The Hague last month.

On International Women's Day (8 March) we take time to consider female emancipation and participation. What does this day mean for Leiden University, and how does it tie in with our aim of becoming more diverse and inclusive? We talked about these issues with Annetje Ottow, who recently became the…

Carel Stolker, former Rector Magnificus and President of the Executive Board of Leiden University, has been made an Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau for his services to the city and University. Mayor Henri Lenferink awarded the royal honour to Stolker at the University’s Dies Natalis on 8 February…

175 years ago, the Netherlands took great strides towards parliamentary democracy with a revamped Constitution. Where does the Constitution stand today?

‘Be yourself. Be as gay, queer, trans as you can and show the world you exist.’ These rousing words from Looi van Kessel marked the start of the third Pride Leiden for the university boat, with the theme: ‘450 years of being yourself’.

On the eve of World War II, Leiden was home to the largest Indonesian student community in the Netherlands. Many of these students joined the resistance against the German occupation, and later some fought for Indonesia’s independence.