University lecturer Gerlov van Engelenhoven was to be a guest in one podcast by culture maker and anthropologist Yanise Zijlstra on intangible heritage. The collaboration went so well that they are now making a short film together for young people.

Good academic writing skills are essential for the successful completion of your study programme. Learn about the best ways to write and how you can motivate yourself to write well by taking a look at the tips on this page.

Are you studying whilst pregnant or combining your studies with taking care of children? You may sometimes need a little extra help and advice. Find out about the support available and who you can turn to.

After 14 years of chairing the Faculty Council, Associate Professor Jan Sleutels is handing over the baton. Student Susan van Grol takes over the chairmanship. Time for an introduction to Susan.

In addition to his Film and Literature Studies, Bob van Oosterhout is a bassoonist with several orchestras. He is going to Milan with the student choir and orchestra ‘Collegium Musicum’.

De Universiteit Leiden is al 25 jaar stevig geworteld in Den Haag. Dat werd zichtbaar tijdens de feestelijke bijeenkomst rondom de foto-expositie Universiteit Leiden in Den Haag: Onderzoekers van de stad.

Students from Leiden University have launched The Nuance Project, a platform for respectful, open-minded dialogue on divisive issues. The aim is to foster connection and understanding among people even if their viewpoints differ.

Amid rising polarisation and discrimination, lawyer and human rights activist Lilian Gonçalves-Ho Kang You wants to show in her Cleveringa Lecture on 26 November how dangerous exclusion is.

On Tuesday 6 May our university was the scene of an unscheduled demonstration and occupation at Campus The Hague. We understand that this incident and its consequences have shaken both the university and the wider community. We look back at the events and their effects.

NATO not only safeguards our security and stability, but also defends Enlightenment principles, promoting prosperity, health and freedom. This is what eminent psychologist and thinker Steven Pinker argued to a packed Great Auditorium.

Leiden University is under fire: it is allegedly doing too little to tackle antisemitism. Rector Hester Bijl responds to this accusation and to a video from 2014 on social media in which extreme remarks are made. ‘We can be short about such comments: they are unacceptable. The university is and always…

Good time management means making the optimum use of your time. You can achieve this by setting priorities, planning realistically and sticking to your plans.

It is possible to develop and improve your study skills. By using the SMART method you can learn to study strategically, be academically competent, have confidence about taking exams and manage your time well. Of course all this is only possible if you put in enough hours.

Many students find speaking in front of their classmates and lecturers nerve-wracking. Giving a presentation can be rather stressful. But good preparation is half the battle and following the tips below can help reduce any anxiety.

Course and exam enrolment

Lecture, YAL & Studium Generale

Education, Research

How can the Netherlands help secure a peaceful future for Israel and Palestine? At a recent meeting at the university, two remarkable speakers shared their perspectives: Somaya Bashir, a Palestinian woman living in Israel, and Palestinian journalist, Houssam Khadra, who fled Gaza over a decade ago.

Conference, Workshop

Organisation

Every year in February, ninety students who love making music come together in Someren, a town in the Dutch province of North Brabant. Through rehearsals and festivities over ten days, they transform into the latest version of the Dutch Student Orchestra (NSO), which then performs concerts in the Netherlands…

The opening of the new academic year highlighted students' and lecturers' personal motivators. Incoming students were encouraged to be bold, forge their own paths and grow by trial and error.

Every year, Leiden University hosts the Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture to mark International Women’s Day. This year, historian Nadia Bouras will speak about academic freedom, class and being a woman in academia. And that is just as relevant to men, says lecturer and organiser Looi van Kessel.

Lecture

A month’s break from your studies, ten days of intensive rehearsals and then a concert tour: the Netherlands Student Orchestra is based on a simple formula. Leiden student Daphne Biron tells us about the orchestra and the concert in Leiden on 20 February.

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…

What will it be like to study at Leiden University in 2075? Ten surprising, artistic uni-visions could be brought to life. It’s up to you to vote for your favourite.

Pop-up art studio

Master

Taking exams well is a skill you can learn. It requires good preparation and the right strategy. An open-book exam requires a very different approach to a multiple-choice exam. The tips below will come in handy when revising and during the exam itself.

Lecture and discussion

The Rutte IV cabinet will be sworn in soon. A fifth of the prospective ministers and secretaries of state studied in Leiden. Who are they and what did they study?

Light, open and green: a description that fits the new, renovated location of the Faculty of Humanities. The official opening of the Herta Mohr Building took place on 8 October, and it has many remarkable features: for example, recycled ‘mushroom columns’, a pedestrian bridge to the University Library…

The film Blade Runner as part of the law curriculum? It’s not that weird to Maartje van der Woude, Professor of Law and Society, and Frans-Willem Korsten, Professor of Literature, Culture and Law. ‘The film raises a fundamental question: what’s a human and what’s not?’ From the next academic year onwards,…

The war between Ukraine and Russia is playing out not just on the battlefield but also on the geopolitical playing field of gas. Conflicts at the start of this century about this energy source were, says PhD candidate Ilia Barboutev, a precursor to today’s war.

A new government, conflicts around the world and obviously a lot of science: these are the five stories about Leiden University that you enjoyed reading in 2024.

Max van Lent, Aris Politopoulos, Emily Strange, Claire Vergerio and Astrid Van Weyenberg have joined the Leiden University Teachers’ Academy. Lecturers at the Academy exchange experiences, develop their skills and share their knowledge and expertise with the rest of the university, for example via the…

The brief removal of Rein Dool’s ‘cigar-smoking white men’ painting generated a storm of reactions last November. Students, staff and alumni reflected on this at a symposium on Friday 26 May.

Even as a teenager Asa Splinter was determined to study Japanese in Leiden. A HAVO diploma and a change in legislation threatened to throw a spanner in the works, but Asa persevered. After ten years of studying, Asa obtained a master’s degree in Japanese and was nominated for the IHLIA thesis award…

Do all graduates in the humanities pursue a career in education? What does support for incoming students look like in Leiden? And what makes a language study so enjoyable? These and more questions were answered during an information session organised specially for twenty deans from West Brabant.

The city centre of Leiden is covered in them: wall poems. When roaming around, you come across poetry written in the Latin alphabet, but also in scripts that might be more difficult to understand for the average person living in Leiden. In a new series of videos, Tijmen Pronk talks more about this.

Leiden University is a member of the Una Europa European alliance. This partnership of 11 research-intensive universities is working to shape the university of the future.

Developing a digital guest lecture for high school students. Jan Sleutels was immediately enthusiastic when he got asked to do this. The end result? Together with his colleague Maarten Lamers, he created the guest lecture 'Thinking about Artificial Intelligence'.

Museums have long focused on power, wealth and a few famous figures. But that is changing, says Valika Smeulders, head of the history department at the Rijksmuseum. What this change comprises and how it has come about is the subject of her keynote speech at the D&I Symposium on 11 January.

Lecture, Book presentation

Master