The challenge: take three hundred students from vastly varying disciplines and teach them the basics of academic thinking in twelve lessons. Impossible? Professor Ben Arps and his team of tutors succeeded. It resulted in a large amount of positive student evaluations.

PhD defence

A delegation from Leiden University recently embarked on a knowledge mission to various NGOs, universities and government organisations in Indonesia. New partnerships were formed and important knowledge exchanged, and researchers from Leiden gave guest lectures.

World Heritage status comes at a cost to the local population’s human rights. PhD Candidate Sophie Starrenburg explains the drawbacks of poetic terms such as ‘the cultural heritage of mankind’.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many staff of Leiden institutes abroad to leave their posts in a hurry. How is the KITLV Jakarta team doing now? Director Marrik Bellen talks about the turbulent times for this Leiden institute and its staff. And can we learn anything from the Indonesian approach?

The airspace had almost closed last year as Leiden students and staff rushed to leave the Netherlands Institute Morocco (NIMAR). How is this Leiden institute in Rabat doing over a year later? ‘Luckily we’d done a crisis exercise a few months before. Everyone managed leave the country in time.’

An impressive 21 research projects by Leiden researchers have been awarded Veni funding from the Dutch Research Council (NWO).