Lucien van Beek studied Comparative Indo-European Linguistics at Leiden University, focusing on Ancient Greek. As of February 2015, Van Beek will be project manager at Ineke Sluiter’s Greek-Dutch dictionary project.

Japanologist and linguist Martine Robbeets is going to use her newly acquired ERC Consolidator Grant to study the origins and spread of Trans-Eurasian languages, which include Japanese and Turkish. With it, she’s tackling one of the most controversial subjects in language history.

Studying ancient materials and the way they were made can give us groundbreaking insights into the past. Not only that, the interplay between people and materials is highly relevant for society today, says Ann Brysbaert, Professor of Ancient Technologies, Crafts and Materials, at the Faculty of Archaeology.…

The Leiden wall formulae, Einstein's sink or the signature wall of Ehrenfest. It are just a few of Leiden's hidden science treasures. Alumnus from the Leiden Observatory Alex Pietrow described a few of these places on travel website Atlas Obscura.

Medewerkers van de Universiteit Leiden trappen maandag 10 maart de estafettestaking af van de Nederlandse universiteiten tegen de kabinetsbezuinigingen.

Over the summer, students – and a few members of staff – at Leiden University sent in their best photos to the University’s ‘Summer in Leiden and The Hague’ photo competition. All these summer-inspired photos are now on display in the Summer in the City photo exhibition in the University’s central administration…

Childcare, no access to labs and extra time for online teaching. These are the main reasons why young researchers at Leiden University have seen a significant drop in their productive working hours since the beginning of lockdown. These are the results of a Young Academy Leiden survey of over 200 early-career…

On 3 July, students of the Leiden Leadership Programme received their certificates in the Marekerk church in Leiden. During the festive closing ceremony, it became clear that humanity and leadership go hand in hand. ‘As a leader, you have to listen, observe and acknowledge problems.’

The city of Leiden has a unique combination of knowledge institutions. To ensure this knowledge flourishes and the city gains the maximum benefit from it, the Leiden City of Knowledge partnership was launched five years ago. A new partnership agreement will be signed on 11 November.

What will happen if the lights in a large part of the city are switched off? How many stars can you see without all that light pollution? This is what researchers, artists and the residents of Leiden are going to investigate during Seeing Stars Leiden on 25 September. ‘Leiden is the ideal place for…

Lifelike gods, provisional professors and the city militia with weapons a clanking. Leiden put on a colourful procession and drummed up hundreds of citizens to celebrate the foundation of the first university of the Republic of the Netherlands on 8 February 1575. 'It wasn't a party just for the sake…

The League of European Research Universities (LERU) was launched in Leiden 20 years ago. LERU is a partnership of 23 leading research universities, including the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Leiden, Leuven and Heidelberg. It celebrated this anniversary last week with a multi-day conference in…

Social Aspects of Space in the Configurational Architecture of Frankish Castles in the Holy Land, 1099-1291

2017 was the Leiden Asia Year. Leiden has had connections with Asia and built up extensive knowledge of the continent over many centuries. This Leiden-Asia link has been in the spotlight for the past year.

Artist Daan Roosegaarde, together with UNESCO and Leiden University, wants to make the stars come out during Seeing Stars Leiden. The University will therefore switch off the lights in most of its buildings on Sunday 25 September from 22:00 to 23:30 and is asking the people of Leiden to follow suit.

Learn more about the former members of the Young Academy Leiden who contributed to a better position for young academics.

If you are new to Leiden, it might be a good idea to join one of its many student associations. You’ll quickly get to know people and build up a network that will continue to prove its worth long after you’ve graduated from your master’s.

Bachelor, Master

Bachelor, Master

ASLU 27 Sjoerd van der Linde (2012)

Leiden University, the LUMC and Janssen have signed a partnership agreement stating that they will collaborate in different areas, including infectious disease prevention, clinical tests, drug production and e-health. By joining forces, the three partners will be able to provide better, more innovative…

King Willem-Alexander visited Leiden on 6 December to open the new wing of the Leiden Instrumentmakers School. Students of this vocational programme make instruments needed for scientific research.

On Friday 11 March (16.00 hrs.) Minister Dijkgraaf (Education, Culture and Science) will give a speech at Leiden University entitled ‘When knowledge becomes critical’. In the speech, he will address several critical challenges in science and society. The livestream will be open to all.

Pottery traditions and social interaction in the earliest Neolithic of the Lower Rhine Area

ASLU 29 Maarten E.R.G.N. Jansen, Valentina Raffa (2015)

The Leiden Ranking – Open Edition is completely transparent. The ranking compiled by the CWTS uses open data and publishes the algorithms that are used.

ASLU 7 - A.E. de Hingh

Back to university to attend lectures with master's students: that's what professionals did at the Leiden Leadership Programme. Conclusion of the experiment? Learning about leadership leaves one wanting more. 'Great that this is possible.'

Within the scope of Leiden European City of Science, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) presented the quadrennial Lorentz Medal to Daan Frenkel in the Academy Building yesterday. The ceremony was in collaboration with the Lorentz Center and was attended by Robbert Dijkgraaf, Minister…

From a powerful documentary to a heartwarming classic: four Leiden alumni have chosen their favourite films and will introduce them at Leiden International Film Festival.

Using enslaved people as servants, becoming an administrator in the Dutch West India Company or making uniforms for the colonial army. Many people from Leiden played a role in colonialism and slavery. Historians are conducting preliminary research and finding striking examples.

SRON, the Netherlands Institute for Space Research, is holding an open day on Sunday 25 September. It has had a branch at the Leiden Bio Science Park since 2021 and works closely with Leiden University.

Natalia Sobrino-Saeb has attended the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony in Oslo. She was awarded this honour after winning the essay competition of the Nobel Ignitor Fellowship, a programme that seeks to inspire young changemakers around the world – for change can be made by all of us: “You never know…

Faculty of Archaeology opened its doors to welcome over 100 archaeology and living archaeology enthusiasts from all over the Netherlands

16 April was a special day at the Faculty of Science. In honour of the collaborations with the Chinese partner university, it was declared Xi’an Jiaotong University Day.

Every Sunday you can help fish plastic and other floating garbage out of the Leiden canals. You can use your own canoe or loan one from Plastic Spotter and join the garbage-fishing fleet. Annetje Ottow, President of Leiden University, was one of the crew on Sunday 4 July.

Now that university buildings have closed, most staff members have started working from home. How are Faculty of Science colleagues faring in their new offices?

The Van Bergen Prize was awarded to not one, but two initiatives at the Diversity Symposium on 22 January. ‘Leiden City Safari’ is a fun city tour that will help incoming Dutch and international students get to know the city of Leiden – and each other. The interactive ‘OpenUP!’ symposium will invite…

Recently, a new round of NWO XS grants was awarded. This grant is given to researchers with small, high-risk, innovative or promising research projects by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). In this round of the so-called Open Competition XS, no fewer than six researchers from the Institute of Political…

A new memorial stone on the facade of a student house in the Hugo de Grootstraat is a reminder of the dozens of Indonesian students who studied in Leiden before and during the Second World War. Some of them were active in the Resistance, which cost a number of them their lives.

‘In the field of AI, Leiden is still a relatively unseen university,’ says Thomas Dohmen. The brand-new Director AI Collaboration Center, would like to forge a Leiden AI collaboration network, with sustainable and impactful relationships between the university and civil society organisations. The question…

Patients who feel understood will recover faster. But how can doctors become more empathetic? By reading literary works, suggests emeritus Leiden Professor of Medical Psychology, Ad Kaptein. He discusses this issue in his book ‘Helende woorden – romans over ziek-zijn’ (Healing words - novels about…

A large delegation composed of 11 delegates from institutes from the Faculty of Science has made an extensive visit to China and enhanced Leiden’s influence in the Chinese academia, industry and local government.

Work out more, eat healthier, have more time to yourself: we make resolutions every year, but they often don't make it past the end of January. To help you succeed this year, we have compiled a list with New Year's resolutions you can put into practice at the University!

We increasingly look at international consortia to come up with scientific and technological advances that are needed to address global challenges in areas such as health, the environment and clean energy. However, organising these consortia involves unique challenges. To identify these challenges,…