Would you like to request a training course for your team or meeting? Leiden University offers basic training courses suitable for all employees as well as specific training courses focused on the unique risks within your department or team.

Leiden University, together with the Open University and Universities of the Netherlands, will take up residence in the Spui building at Grote Marktstraat 48-50/Spui 3 in downtown The Hague from 2025. The partners signed the leases on 7 November.

Sinéad Mulcahy recently started the Europaeum Scholars Programme, a two-year policy and leadership course for a group of thirty talented and committed PhD candidates from universities across Europe. She is already enthusiastic – both about the programme and her fellow scholars. ‘I would like to bring…

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.

Social

Education

Research, Social

Research

Leiden and The Hague have an extra 450 trees thanks to a special campaign to mark the 450th anniversary of the Relief of Leiden and Leiden University’s foundation. Over the past few months, Stadslab Leiden has worked on an initiative to plant young trees with the residents of the two cities.

In a speech on Keti Koti the Dutch king, Willem-Alexander, apologised on behalf of the royal family for the Netherlands’ historical role in slavery. What is the significance of this?

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.

Simple and effective communication with your colleagues is often easier said than done. The ‘Use your strengths to communicate’ skills lab helps you hone your communication skills. We asked two colleagues about the impact of the course on their personal and professional lives.

UNESCO has recognized a large collection of handwritten letters and the archive of Raden Ajeng Kartini (1879-1904) as documentary world heritage. Kartini opposed gender inequality in feudal Javanese society, including forced marriages, polygamy and lack of education for women.

In May 2022 Lennart Kruijer succesfully defended his PhD, which he wrote as a member of the VICI Project ‘Innovating Objects’, led by prof. Miguel John Versluys. So succesfully, in fact, that he was awarded the Cum Laude honors. Just a short time later he was awarded a grant and a fellowship to further…

Finance, Organisation

Timo Kos has been Vice President of Leiden University’s Executive Board since 1 March. Who is he and how have his first weeks been? ‘Higher education is under threat; we’re under fire.’

The annual commemoration of the nation’s war dead on Dam Square and at Waalsdorpervlakte, the Dutch apologies for historical slavery and the Cleveringa Lecture itself: our relationship with history is often ritualistic, Cleveringa Professor Frank van Vree will say in his inaugural lecture on 27 Nove…

Poland votes for a new president in a first round of elections on Sunday. Lecturer Jan Meijer points out: ‘The result will have a lot of impact on Donald Tusk's liberal government and its plans for reforms.’

The organ in the Academy Building is 25 years old. University organist Jan Verschuren and tuner Bert Crama talk about the long history of university organs, improvising with short cortèges and their love for this organ.

You may know it by the umbrella term 'citizen science'. You may also use terms such as volunteer mapping, patient co-researcher, or even community engaged learning to describe participatory practices in your research or teaching. No matter what you call it, there’s plenty going on when it comes to this…

The University urgently needs IT talent. The ISSC has therefore started a pilot refer-a-friend scheme: if you recommend someone you know for a hard-to-fill IT job and they are hired, you will receive a 1,500-euro (gross) bonus. ‘So hit us with your golden tips,’ says ISSC director Joop van der Born.

Today marks the start of the Healthy University - Let's Walk Week 2021, a week focused on the mental and physical health of our employees. Including an online program with interesting inspiration sessions, office workouts and sports lessons. And join our walking competition in the Ommetje app!

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded a prestigious Starting Grant to Leiden archaeologist Dr Nathalie Brusgaard. With this €1.5 million grant, Brusgaard will investigate how the transition to farming in Western Europe affected the relationship between humans and wild animals. A theme that,…

Leiden archaeologists have been conducting research with students and local archaeologists in Oss (in the province of Brabant) for 50 years. An exhibition at Leiden University shows how these finds tell the region’s story.

Through various initiatives, Leiden University is trying to make people aware of the importance of biodiversity: the cultivation of a wide variety of micro-organisms, animals and plant species. This is important because in the Netherlands biodiversity has declined from about 40 percent in 1900 to about…

After a three-year absence, Lennart Kruijer has returned to the Faculty of Archaeology. He previously completed his PhD within the VICI project Innovating Objects, and now returns as a postdoctoral researcher in the Anchoring Innovation programme.

The conflict between Israel and Hamas has had a clear impact on Leiden University. Students and staff are angry or scared, feel unsafe and are experiencing group pressure.

How can we help our students build resilience and prevent unnecessary stress? And how do we break the taboo on failure? These and other questions are what study advisers, lecturers, deans and student support staff discussed at the staff symposium on student well-being at PLNT.

Social

After three years of covid postponements, the time had finally come on Wednesday 29 June 2022: Carel Stolker’s last speech as Rector Magnificus was buried according to tradition under the ginkgo tree in the library at the Kamerlingh Onnes building.

Education

Anyone who follows the Faculty of Archaeology on social media must have noticed that something changed in September. Videos on research projects, interviews with staff and students, and embracing memes: the content has become more varied and engaging. We speak with students Grace Alonzo and Thomas Prins,…

People in leadership roles are unlikely to discuss leadership skills with their colleagues. But that is precisely what we as a university would like them to do. Because trust in one another’s abilities will make us an agile university that innovates and makes room for talent.

In the past decade many academic journals have started to require that researchers provide evidence of ethical review when submitting papers, for example when working with human participants or human remains.. In order to support researchers to ensure their projects are able to meet these expectations,…

Major developments worldwide are creating new challenges for society. The pandemic has hit us hard, for example, and we are already feeling the effects of global warming. How can society and politics deal with the urgent problems of our time? That is the theme of the Global Transformations and Governance…

Marjan van Dasselaar was appointed as the new ombuds officer for staff on 1 May. She will be working to create a safer working atmosphere within the University. 'There is a lot of pain felt by people who experience social insecurity. That pain always has to be taken seriously.'

The Faculty of Archaeology used to be involved in several excavations in Syria, before the outbreak of civil war made travel to the region impossible. One of these excavations is the one of tell Hammam al-Turkman, which started in 1981. Student Ruben Hartman, together with archaeologist Dr Diederik…

On Tuesday, the 16th of May, the Faculty of Archaeology put a festive end to the 25th year celebrations. The programme included a dedication of our largest meeting room, the sealing and burying of a time capsule, and a BBQ.

Whether finding signals of dark matter or discovering hydrogen in the vicinity of exoplanets, Leiden astronomers are world players in their field, and they are part of a long tradition: Leiden was the first university in the world to have its own observatory.

You might be wondering what the reconstruction of the former V&D store at Spui in The Hague looks like now. If so, you can come and find out for yourself. On Saturday 8 June 2024, from 10.00 – 13.00 hrs., the building site of the new Campus The Hague Leiden University Building will be open to the pu…

How did people move and form communities when human societies first shifted from hunting and gathering to farming? A new study of the Neolithic period in southwest Asia, the birthplace of agriculture, offers fresh insights.