Huygens, Niels Bohrweg 2, 2333 CA, Leiden

Gorlaeus Building, Einsteinweg 55, 2333 CC, Leiden

Snellius, Niels Bohrweg 1, 2333 CA, Leiden

Sylvius, Sylviusweg 72, 2333 BE, Leiden

This week, Leiden University bade farewell to Henri Lenferink, who is retiring after 20 years as mayor of Leiden.

As a result of the current corona measures, attendance at the Opening of the Academic Year on 6 September will be restricted to a maximum of 75 persons. The ceremony can, however, be viewed online by taking part in a video wall.

Michiel Veldhuis received the most public votes for the C.J. Kok Public Award and may therefore call himself Discoverer of the Year. Veldhuis researches how climate change affects savannah ecosystems in Africa and how we can protect them.

Beautiful prizes, special speeches, and a reception with live music. The well-attended Leiden Science New Year's reception was a delightful way to start the year 2023. Dean Jasper Knoester opened the event after which it was announced who were chosen teacher and bachelor student of the year.

Het strategisch plan van de faculteit wiskunde en natuurwetenschappen (FWN) werd gepresenteerd tijdens de opening van het academisch jaar 2023-2024.

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.

How did a fifteen year old paper receive an award? It happened to LIACS professor Todor Stefanov and his colleagues. Their paper was awarded with the Test of Time Award, an international award for papers that had the highest impact over time. This paper in particular is about Daedalus, a framework used…

The academic year has officially begun! Hundreds of colleagues and students came together on 6 September to see each other again after the quiet summer months. A truly festive gathering, with live music and an evening lecture by Ignas Snellen.

On 1 July – Keti Koti, in the year ahead, our university community will be able to reflect extensively on the history of slavery by engaging in research, education and many other activities.

After a turbulent Covid year, the well-being of our students and staff has the highest priority. How can we prevent physical and mental health problems? This was the key question at the Opening of the Academic Year in Pieterskerk in Leiden on 6 September.

Organisation

In exactly 450 days’ time, on 8 February 2025, it is the university’s 450th anniversary. We are obviously going to celebrate this with our students, staff and friends. Do you have any ideas for this celebration?

Education

Maarten Schrama (CML) has won the Teacher of the Year Award 2021. During a lunch with fellow nominees, Schrama received a cheque worth 5,000 euros from student assessor Joost Barendse to spend on educational activities.

Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, gave a guest lecture to first-year law students at Leiden University. He spoke about democracy, the war in Ukraine and the role of the Netherlands.

The brightness peak of the ring around M87's supermassive black hole has shifted 30 degrees counterclockwise in a year. This is shown by new images released by the Event Horizon Telescope consortium.

It is exactly one year ago that the university had to close, bang in the middle of the academic year. Suddenly, on that third Monday in March, we found ourselves at home, working and studying online – many of us from that cramped attic or student room. The momentous coronavirus year in pictures.

Social

Koos Biesmeijer, Professor of Natural Capital, and Claire van Megen, an Educational and Child Studies student, are in with a chance of winning Leiden’s Person of the Year title.

A beautiful speech by vice-dean Bart de Smit, a mini-lecture on exoplanets and the presentation of three faculty awards. That's how we started the new year at the faculty. Together with colleagues and students, we raised our glasses to a new year full of great collaborations, science and education.

The theme of the opening of this year’s academic year was peace and justice. With the climate crisis and the war in Ukraine, these are turbulent times. During the ceremony those present reflected on what the academic community and universities can mean in times of crisis and conflict.

Education

Each year a staggering 18 billion chickens, turkeys, pigs, sheep, goats, and cows either die or are killed without making it onto someone's plate. Environmental scientists Juliane Klaura, Laura Scherer, and Gerard Breeman were the first to calculate this number on a global scale. 'Reducing these numbers…

At the beginning of the corona pandemic, our Faculty appointed student mentors to guide first-year and international students. What drives these mentors, and what is it like to be back at the Faculty again? Mireia and Marten tell us all about it.

With the holidays just around the corner in this dark month of December, when we light candles as a symbol of warmth and hope, we would like to take a moment to reflect on this past year. We have accomplished a great deal together but the year has been difficult at times.

The Faculty of Science launched the new Academic Year on 21 September with a special We Are Science talk show. Dean Paul Wouters starred in his role as talk show host and received a wide variety of guests.

The Honours Academy celebrates its tenth anniversary. How did the institute develop over time, and what are aspirations for the future? We speak with the current Dean and a predecessor who was there at the Academy's founding. A conversation about identity, inspiration, and impact ensues. ‘It is about…

The Indonesian Student Association in the Netherlands, ‘Perhimpunan Pelajar Indonesia Belanda’, has teamed up with the Indonesian embassy in The Hague and Historia.ID magazine to create an exhibition to mark the association’s 100th anniversary. The student association, which was founded in Leiden, played…

Quantum Rules lab van Leiden Universiteit biedt proefjes en experimenten voor middelbare scholieren om te leren over kwantum natuurkunde. Henk Buisman vertelt over het 5 jarige jubileum.

The orbits of 27 stars orbiting closely around the black hole at the center of our Milky Way are very chaotic. As a result, researchers cannot predict with confidence where they will be in about 462 years. ‘That is astonishingly short,’ says astronomer Simon Portegies Zwart who collaborated on the r…

The 50th Top 450 entry has now been published. In the run-up to the university’s 450th anniversary, we are compiling our Top 450. What is your favourite?

New year reception

University ceremony

Academic ceremony

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

Conference

Conference

Festival

Conference

Lecture

Lecture, Opening of the Academic Year

Paul Gobée (LUMC), Kirsty Rolfe (Humanities) and Frank Takes (Science) have been nominated for the Leiden Teaching Prize 2023.