Scott Waitukaitus has been nominated by LION to be Discoverer of the Year 2017. Cast your vote now!

Who will be our Discoverer of the year 2017? Which one of these brilliant researchers deserves this prize for their efforts according to you? As of now, you can cast your vote.

Former PhD student Annelien Zweemer was granted the C.J. Kok Award 2014, also known as “Discoverer of the Year”. A festive ceremony took place at the Faculty’s New Year’s reception on January 6, 2015.

During the Faculty of Science New Year's reception, Daniël Rozen was named Discoverer of the year 2015. Nienke van der Marel and Koen van der Maaden both won the prize for the best dissertation and Jeroen van Smeden was named Best Teacher of 2015.

At the New Year’s reception of the Faculty of Science on 6 January, it was announced that Annelien Zweemer, Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research, has been awarded the ‘Discoverer of the Year 2014’ prize. Matteo Brogi, Leiden Observatory, wrote the best dissertation in 2014 and Dennis Claessen, Institute…

Former PhD student Gerard van Westen was granted the C.J. Kok Award also known as “Discoverer of the Year”. A festive ceremony took place at the Faculty’s New Year’s reception on January 7, 2014.

Environmental scientist Alexander van Oudenhoven has been chosen as Discoverer of the year of the Faculty of Science. Vice Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl announced this during the faculty’s New Year’s Reception on 10 January. Biologist Changsheng Wu won the prize for best dissertation of 2016. Computer…

Every person on earth can read another person’s mind. Not in the way psychics or witches do, but by putting themselves in the shoes of others and considering how they perceive the world. This kind of empathy greatly facilitates communication and interaction. Max van Duijn studies this phenomenon to…

Earlier this year, the public voted environmental scientist Paul Behrens Discoverer of the Year 2018. Behrens is an interdisciplinary scientist who wants to understand our impact on the planet. ‘Unfortunately, we are not doing enough. Huge changes are underway and we’re running out of time to avoid…

Irene Battisti is the discoverer of the year 2019. The physicist won the C.J. Kok Public Award for her research into microscopy and superconductors.

The [a]social creatures lab focusses on understanding social interaction with and between artificial creatures.

We are a dynamic research group at the Leiden Institute of Physics. Our aim is to explore and understand quantum materials, including strange metals, high-temperature superconductors, and quantum critical electron matter.

Which teacher did an outstanding job in not only transferring knowledge in novel ways but also in getting students enthusiastic and connecting a course to current research themes? Meet the nominees for the Teacher of the Year Award 2024!

Media & interaction is where artificial intelligence and machine learning meet philosophy, cognitive science, and the creative arts. Examples of research questions in this domain are: 'Can an algorithm be creative by human standards?', 'Can creative processes, such as composing music or writing poetry,…

The research conducted at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research is clustered within the divisions of BioTherapeutics, Drug Discovery & Safety and Systems Biomedicine and Pharmacology, and the Metabolomics and Analytics Centre.

Our Talents and Discoveries was a yearly publication by the Faculty of Science of Leiden University, published since 2003. You can read all the editions online. Note that the original publication was in Dutch; the original title translates as 'What we are proud of'. The last booklet came out in 2022,…

Daniel Rozen (45), at the IBL since September 2012, uses bacteria in laboratory tests on experimental evolution to study the ecology and genetics of adaptation. His research has applied importance, as it reveals how bacteria may be induced to produce new antibiotics. Last January, Rozen received the…

An overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2017, as well as special appointments and royal distinctions.

Improving healthcare with our scientific discoveries: that is the goal of pharmaceutical research at Leiden University. And there’s a lot involved in that. Our research starts with the discovery of the effect achieved by a particular substance, and sometimes continues all the way through to the development…

On this page you can learn more about the history of our Faculty Awards and view the previous winners.

best phd theses of the faculty of science Leiden - physics, chemistry, computer science, biopharmaceutical sciences, biology, industrial ecology, environmental sciences, astronomy, mathematics

Pharmacologist Amanda Foks is one of the ten talented scientists who received a Dekker grant from the Hartstichting. She receives €427,000 to find a way to rejuvenate immune cells to prevent infarcts. Foks was nominated as Discoverer of the Year in 2016.

The Division of Systems Pharmacology and Pharmacy (SPP) aims to develop precision medicine approaches to characterise and predict variation in treatment response and enhance translational drug development strategies.

Gerard van Westen (LACDR/division of medicinal chemistry) has been awarded with a VENI grant from NWO, the Dutch Research Council.

Students of the Faculty of Science have chosen Dennis Claessen (IBL) as the best teacher of last year.

Tiny selenium particles could have a therapeutic effect on ischemic brain strokes by promoting the recovery of brain damage. Pharmacologists, including Alireza Mashaghi from the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research discovered that selenium nanoparticles inhibit molecular mechanisms that are responsible…

Graphene and other layered materials combine into completely new substances. Leiden physicists establish the ground rules for designing such materials by measuring how the layers in the stack interact. Publication on November 29 in Nature Communications.

‘One lecturer stood out in particular,’ said Dirk van Vugt, Chair of the Leiden University Student Platform (LUS), at the opening of the academic year. ‘Despite the hurdles of remote teaching, she managed to inspire her students with the aid of knowledge clips, challenges and topical lectures about…

What went on in 2016 at our University? What are we proud of? You can view the answers in our new photo brochure. Our new brochure 'About us' is available as well, with the most recent facts and figures. Both brochures are available in English.

Auke-Florian Hiemstra is the Leidsch Dagblad Person of the Year 2022.

Leiden academics Remco Breuker and Auke-Florian Hiemstra stand to win the title of Person of the Year.

Paul Adriaanse, together with eight other candidates, has been nominated in the administration law category for the title ‘Magna Charta Lawyer of the year’. The public will vote to decide the winner

The editors of Biophysical Journal have selected a publication from Daniela Kraft’s group as the Paper of the Year 2017. The award recognizes an outstanding contribution by a young investigator.

Leiden was ‘European City of Science’ in 2022. Leiden University looks back on a fantastic year with activities, lectures and workshops full of science and curiosity.

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.

The molecule calix[4]pyrrole, synthesised in the group of associate professor Sander Wezenberg at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry, has been voted ‘Molecule of the Year’ by the readers of C2W Mens & Molecule. Wezenberg received the award from editor Daniël Linzel.

Last January, the education assessors of the different study associations chose Fouzia Lghoul-Oulad Saïd of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) as teacher of the year. Her passion for teaching extends beyond her classes, according to the students who nominated her: ‘ She is always ready…

Research report January 2020. Supported by the lectorate ‘Music, Education and Society’, research group ‘Making in Music’, Royal Conservatoire The Hague

Pharmaceutical research should make more use of data science, says Gerard van Westen, postdoctoral fellow at the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR). ‘If we want to have better drugs, we should start with data.’

What would a university be without its students? In 2025, we will celebrate 450 years of studying with an exhibition showcasing our students from the past centuries. How did they study in the past? And how do they study now? This outdoor exhibition will be on display from 23 April at the Hortus bota…