A project to improve practicals in science courses has been awarded a 175,000 subsidy. Leiden physicist Paul Logman is one of the applicants, together with colleagues from the UvA and Eindhoven University of Technology.

Professor Jenny Doetjes at Leiden University researches similarities and differences in languages, specifically in the area of numerals and quantifiers. Her research provides insight into language patterns, bu also in the working of the human brain. Inaugural lecture on 26 January.

Dr Jenny Doetjes was appointed Professor of Semantics and Language Variation in February. During her professorship Dr. Doetjes wishes to focus on charting linguistic patterns between languages that, at first glance, seem to have little to do with each other.

Brain scanners have radically changed neurolinguistics. They are increasing our understanding of how the brain processes language. Professor Niels Schiller has produced a standard work on this.

On World Refugee Day, held every year on 20 June, we commemorate the strength, courage and perseverance of millions of refugees. Leiden University is committed to students with a refugee background. For example, the university has set up a Meeting Point and the Leiden Science Run raises money for UAF,…

Leiden University has a new platform. On 19 September Vice-Rector Hester Bijl officially launched the LGBT+ Network.

In 2017 the book Artists in the University-Positioning Artistic Research in Higher Education by Jenny Wilson was published by Springer. Prof.dr. Henk Borgdorff wrote the foreword, which includes part of his inaugural lecture.

Feedback from fellow students on academic writing is as informative as that of teachers.

Dissatisfied older teachers regularly quit teaching before reaching retirement age. In her dissertation, Ietje Veldman advocates specific coaching for this group to retain them for education.

How can I align science, society and myself to address today’s major challenges? That’s what students of the Honours College track ‘Science, Society and Self’ aim to find out. How do their classes at honours differ from their regular education?

In the Netherlands, people probably grew up with De Fabeltjeskrant (a children’s show, ed.), but in France an introduction to fables plays a much more important role in a child's upbringing. PhD candidate Céline Zaepffel studied the role of fables in French education and teaching methods. It turns out…

Whilst 2020 has been an unusual and taxing year for colleagues at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA), the Institute nevertheless can look back on an impressive range of successful grant applications during the previous year. This impressive result was achieved on top of excellent results…

Dr. Vlad Niculescu-Dincă (Institute of Security and Global Affairs) has been appointed a Knight of the Order “Merit for Education” through a decree of Romanian President Klaus-Werner Johannis.

Evaluations of a most challenging year to both staff and students in terms of teaching and education support have turned out remarkably well. Although we had to switch to online education almost overnight, we pulled it off!

For this project we delve into children's digital media use during the transition from kindergarten to group 3 and investigate its impact on their social development.

Three Humanities lecturers received the Senior Teaching Qualification (SKO) this year. University lecturer Markus Davidsen is one of them. What does he think makes for good teaching?

In a fiery Annie Romein-Verschoor lecture, Sylvana Simons opened up about her experiences as a woman in politics. The leader of the BIJ1 party is regularly the subject of belittling comments and threats. Writer Aafke Romeijn, who reflected on the Simons’ lecture, has also been threatened frequently…

Many traces of the city's slavery history can be found in Leiden but the public isn't always aware of them. The initiators of 'Mapping Slavery in Leiden' want to change this with guided tours and street markers. Representatives of the University and other Leiden institutions will be giving the first…

Museums have long focused on power, wealth and a few famous figures. But that is changing, says Valika Smeulders, head of the history department at the Rijksmuseum. What this change comprises and how it has come about is the subject of her keynote speech at the D&I Symposium on 11 January.

How to innovate education? In this series, the Honours Academy highlights examples from their educational testing ground that aim to inspire. Today: pioneering with podcasts. What are the do's and don'ts? Two teachers and a student share their thoughts.

Students are ever more cautious to express their view on controversial debates. The new student-led D&I initiative at the Faculty of Humanities, COOP, is ready to step in. They organise sessions to guide students on speaking up and respecting the views of others at university.

At a symposium on 26 May, experts, staff and students from Leiden University will discuss what should happen with Rein Dool’s painting in the Academy Building and what the guidelines for the University’s exhibition policy should be. These issues will be explored from diverse perspectives during the…

During the first year of life, babies adapt to the language they hear around them. In the event of hearing difficulties, this can lead to a language deficiency, which is not so easy to resolve, says Professor of English Linguistics Janet Grijzenhout. Inaugural lecture 19 March.

He is always positive towards his students, helps them see the bigger picture of the programme, and tries to remind them that ‘a degree is an enormous opportunity to grow in directions that genuinely interest you.’ Thomas Moerland, assistant professor at LIACS, has been nominated for Lecturer of the…

In academia, the mention of Wikipedia might be met with suspicion. However, for Tsolin Nalbantian, university lecturer Modern Middle Eastern Studies, the encyclopedia is an opportunity to broaden the skills of her students and to increase public knowledge. She received a Teaching Comenius Fellowship…

Professor Kees Waaldijk presented the report on the LawsAndFamilies Database to Pearl Dykstra, member of the High Level Group of Scientific Advisors of the European Commission on 25 April. This comparative study shows that in European countries same-sex partners are increasingly gaining equal rights.…

On Tuesday 14 February 2017 defended Kees van Gageldonk his doctoral thesis ‘Op zoek naar onderzoek. De totstandkoming van de onderzoekfunctie in het hoger beroepsonderwijs' at the Academy Building of Leiden University. Supervisor of the research is Prof.dr. W. Otterspeer with co-supervisor Dr. P.J.…

Professor Wim Willems of the Centre for Modern Urban Studies (MUS), together with Anne van Mourik, is researching the life of Ru Paré, the woman who saved 52 Jewish children during World War II.

How do museum visitors interpret the authenticity of museum objects? How can we support visitors' meaningful interactions with real objects?

After an extensive content analysis of the coalition agreement, a sharp fall can be seen in the focus on education & culture, science & technology and defence. This is the conclusion of university public administration professors Gerard Breeman and Arco Timmermans. They compared the content with all…

In September, university lecturers Olga van Marion and Astrid Van Weyenberg started working as education coaches. How did their first semester of activities go and what is next on the horizon?

University lecturer Steven Lauritano has been awarded a Comenius Teaching Fellow grant. Lauritano will use the grant of 50,000 euros to improve hybrid education in classes featuring particular objects.

From 1 October onwards, Dennis Claessen and Marcel Schaaf will be the new directors of education of Biology. They will replace Han de Winde. Schaaf will be responsible for the bachelor, while Claessen will mainly focus on the master tracks of Biology. We gave students and the education office the change…

Regulating Relations: Controlling Sex and Marriage

Lucia Langerak was awarded a Master’s degree in Egyptology with cum laude honours in 2018. Her bachelor’s degree was also with cum laude honours. ‘I’m an exceptional Egyptologist, if only because I’ve never been to Egypt.’ She is now the coordinator of the Access & Support Platform at the University…

Professor by special appointment Jojanneke van der Toorn organised a symposium in cooperation with Workplace Pride, hosted by the university in the academy building on 18 May. Jojanneke van der Toorn occupies the chair of LGBT workplace inclusion, a special appointment that Van der Toorn and Leiden…

Study information, Webinar

In December 2020, the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs and Helmut Schmidt University of the German Armed Forces in Hamburg signed a cooperation agreement to cooperate in the education realm on a variety of topics related to the Civilian and Military dimensions of European and Global Security…

Four students founded the Leiden Student Working Group on Homosexuality on the day of the Dies Natalis in 1968. This was to be the start of the LBGT+ movement in Leiden, which celebrated its 50-year anniversary this year. What has been achieved and what is the status of emancipation today?

The Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) is looking for a: PhD The Illustrated Aesopian Fable in Education in France 1500-2010 (1.0 fte) Vacancy number: 16-123

The results of the National Student Survey (NSE) are now available. In 2024, students from the Faculty of Humanities were satisfied across the board. The expertise of lecturers was rated particularly positively.

An alumni masterclass on inclusive leadership was held on Tuesday 12 June. Alumni of Leiden University returned to the lecture hall to learn about managing diversity in organisations. Various speakers shared their knowledge of the topic. The evening ended with a panel discussion, which gave the alumni…

Berber languages have long been banned from public life in North Africa, but the situation has changed drastically. Linguistic research is generating new insights on the distant past and on present-day Dutch Moroccans. This is the finding of Maarten Kossmann, the only professor of Berber Studies in…

In April 2025, Ms. Esther Rachow from The Hebrew University in Jerusalem presenting her ongoing doctoral research at an Austria Centre Leiden lunch-time talk. She answered a few questions about her visit below.