What should our education and research look like in 2027? How can we make the university more sustainable and achieve greater impact? The new Strategic Plan will set the direction for the coming years, and the Executive Board wants students and staff to provide as much input as possible. Would you like…

What do you do when you’re suddenly given access to a whole lot of data but don’t know how to organise and analyse it? Maritime historians in the Faculty of Humanities joined forces with vocational college (MBO) students to build a database. ‘We’re so compatible with each other.’

Last year, Dr. Henk van Steenbergen received a Grass Shoot grant to completely redevelop the research master's course 'Experimentation I: Programming Psychological Experiments'. The revised course was taught for first time last block and has just come to an end. Time for a brief recap.

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing? What kinds of things is he doing and what does his day look like? In each newsletter Jasper gives a peek into his life as dean.

The legal distinction between victims of human trafficking and victims of migrant smuggling is unjust, argues De Massol Rebetz in her PhD thesis. In certain instances, smuggled migrants should be treated the same as victims of human trafficking.

With great sadness we share the news that Prof. Harold Linnartz passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on Sunday 31 December 2023. We are all in shock, and our thoughts are with his wife and children, other family, and friends. Harold was at the heart of our institute, as a researcher, as a supervisor,…

Winning an award at the start of your studies? No problem! Lieke Vertegaal is 20 years old and a first-year Computer Science student at Leiden University. On November 29, 2021, the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences (KHMW) awarded her a Young Talent incentive award.

Promovendus Dorine van Staalduinen deed onderzoek naar de implementatie van Waardegedreven Zorg en ontdekte dat structurele samenwerking nog uitdagend is.

What is the relationship between humans and nature like? And how can we use it to tackle climate problems? In the Master Honours Class ‘Planet in Peril’, students approach climate issues from the perspective of the humanities. ‘Things are not always as one-sided as they seem.’

A whole week was dedicated to fair partnerships and equitable exchange in Leiden-African education and research

Professor Remco Breuker plays the leading role in the new documentary ‘Big in Korea’. Over three Sunday evenings, viewers can follow his journey through South Korea. How has the country developed over the past decades? And what is the impact of last December's failed coup?

Last year he became Teacher of the Year because of his innovative and online teaching, now Alexander van Oudenhoven has to change course again and teach physically. What have the first weeks been like for him? ‘Let's apply what we learned in the lockdown period.’

The Mapping Slavery project will place markers that tell the story of Leiden’s slavery past. Why is this important and what does it mean for today’s society? Before the markers are placed, a panel came together on 24 March to discuss the slavery past of not only the city but the University too.

On 1 March 2023, the Dutch Safety Board (Onderzoeksraad Voor De Veiligheid, OVV) published its report on the protection provided by the Dutch security services and lessons learned from three cases. The OVV was highly critical of the use of key witnesses and the protection offered to them. Jan Crijns,…

As part of Leiden University’s aim to be a safe and healthy environment for all staff and students, several activities and lectures were organised in an action week around suicide prevention. Dedicated benches were also placed at several university buildings, including at the Faculty of Humanities.

A degree in the Humanities provides a strong start in the labour market, according to research conducted among alumni who graduated between 2020 and 2024.

In the ‘Educatips’ column, psychology lecturers share their most important insights on teaching. This month: Taarique Debidin thinks making contact with one another is more important than cramming knowledge. ‘I’d get no energy at all from being a formal lecturer.’

De Declaration of equity helpt studieverenigingen op het gebied van diversiteit en inclusie.

Master’s student in Company Law Jelle van der Werff left for Melbourne in February 2025 for a six-month exchange. It turned out to be a great opportunity: ‘Getting to know so many different cultures in one place is really special.’

After three years of courses, exercises, debating and reflecting, Honours College students received their certificate during a festive ceremony. Even more than with the certificate as such, attendees were pleased with the way Honours enables students to deal with an increasingly complex world.

Who was professionally involved in language between 1550 and 1650? And what were the financial returns of this language sector? Assistant Professor Alisa van de Haar has received an ERC Starting Grant to map out the situation in Northwest Europe between 1550 and 1650.

After the summer, the SPSS statistics programme will be replaced by the new ‘R’ software for first year students. Hemmo Smit and Sjoerd Huisman, both lecturers in Methodology and Statistics, initiated this major change in the curriculum. That did not happen overnight.

Fake news a new phenomenon? Not according to Rens Tacoma and Indira Huliselan. In an NWO project, the associate professor and PhD student will delve into the twisting, scheming and tampering with facts that went on thousands of years ago.

‘Islam and Muslims are not something that happened to Europe; they are part of Europe. In fact, Islam is one the biggest constants in European history,’ argues Professor Maurits Berger in the new eight-part History of Islam in Europe podcast series of the Leiden University Faculty of Humanities.

2021 was an eventful year once again for the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA). Hybrid, working from home, online education, on-campus education, face masks, self-tests, keeping distance, quarantine and the coronavirus. Words that have now become a standard part of our vocabulary when…

The programme committees at Leiden Law School play an important role in staff and student participation. What are the activities of such commitee?

And there you are. A couple of suitcases with you, in a new (unknown) country. You've arranged a room in advance. You know which university you're attending. But other than that ... Evert-Jan, master's student in Encyclopaedia and Philosophy of Law, studied at the Université Paris Panthéon-Assas in…

Every six years, the research conducted at all law schools in the Netherlands is evaluated during a research evaluation. On 6 and 7 October, it was Leiden University’s turn to be evaluated. The aim of this ‘site visit’ is to allow the committee to get an idea of the faculty research climate, the research…

On Wednesday 1 September, the first thirteen students of the new BA Urban Studies at Leiden University, received their diplomas in person in The Hague. During a festive graduation ceremony, they were congratulated by rector magnificus Hester Bijl.

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Donororganen zijn er nooit genoeg. De organen die wel beschikbaar zijn, moeten vliegensvlug getransplanteerd worden. De geneeskunde zet daarom volop in op het langer goedhouden van organen. Marlon de Haan (24) onderzoekt hoe je nieren buiten het lichaam in leven kunt houden.

Mirjam Oomens was working on her PhD research on language in the consulting room when she was diagnosed with metastatic cancer. Four years later, she has made it her mission to encourage doctors and other healthcare professionals to make fewer statements about life expectancy. 'Such a conviction can…

The elections finally seemed to be about substance again. Housing, migration, healthcare and security were widely discussed. Yet once more, political style took centre stage - because both Rob Jetten and Henri Bontenbal won through a deliberate use of style.

An international team of researchers led by Leiden archaeology professor Marie Soressi and Leipzig senior geneticist Matthias Meyer has recovered the DNA of a woman belonging to an Ancient North Eurasian population from a 20,000-year-old pendant. This is the first time DNA analysis has been used to…

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing, what exactly does he do and what does his day look like? In each newsletter, Jasper gives an insight into his life.

They first entered the Academy Building fifty to sixty years ago. On 28 March, they were back for an afternoon: the members of the Dr Pfiffikus debating society of the German Studies programme. Former chair Hans van der Veen looks back on his student days.

Lawyer, economist, politician and women’s rights activist Lizzy van Dorp is the 100th entry in our Top 450. Who or what is your favourite?

Plants can’t run away from enemies. Still, it would like to keep life-threatening herbivores at a distance. This can be done with odours. Klaas Vrieling of the Institute of Biology Leiden found out with his team how plants change odour production to keep the munchers at a distance.

Parents from all corners of the university bring their children to De Kattekop, the university’s day nursery. How does manager Ellen Buschman use her psychology degree in her work?

‘It truly is a plan by and for us all,’ said Annetje Ottow, President of the Executive Board, at the Dies Natalis celebration on 8 February. Leiden Law School was also actively involved developing in the strategic plan.

The Lakenhal depot houses three nineteenth-century sample books in which the cotton company De Heyder & Co kept precise records of who placed which orders. History student Marit Scheepsma used them to find out more about the company's colonial contacts.

What’s new, BAIS alumni? This summer, the BAIS Alumni Association hosted the yearly alumni reunion, organized in virtual format for the second time after the previous reunion also took place online in 2020. Feeling the need to compensate for the lack of in-person interaction, the Alumni Association…

Course and exam enrolment

Nearly 19,000 runners lined up at the start of Leiden Marathon on Sunday, among them students and staff from the university. For some this was their first race, for others a highlight of their year. This year, in celebration of our 450th anniversary, they ran in a special jubilee t-shirt.

Psychologist Hilmar Zech found that overweight people are actually more attracted to food pictures after eating than before. He did so using an old research method that he revamped for use on smartphones. Zech will defend his PhD on 30 April.

Four prints, ten years of research. Not that she got bored of them, on the contrary. Corrie van Maris, who receives her PhD this week, has always remained fascinated by her 17th-century series, for which she feels so much love. ‘I kept seeing different, new things.’