The university has seven academic faculties and over fifty subject departments, housing more than forty national and international research institutes. Its historical primary campus consists of several buildings spread over Leiden, while a second campus located inThe Hague houses a liberal arts college (Leiden University College The Hague) and several of its faculties. It is a member of theCoimbra Group, theEuropaeum, and a founding member of theLeague of European Research Universities.
In 1575, the emergingDutch Republic did not have universities in its northern heartland. The only other university in theHabsburg Netherlands was theUniversity of Leuven, located in an area under firm Spanish control.Prince William founded Leiden University to give the Northern Netherlands an institution that could educate its citizens in religion and provide the government with educated men in all fields.[12][13] It is said the choice fell on Leiden as a reward for the heroicdefence of Leiden against Spanish attacks in 1574. The name ofPhilip II of Spain, William's adversary, appears on the official foundation certificate as he was still thede jurecount of Holland.[14] Philip II forbade all his subjects to study in Leiden.
The new institution was initially located in the Convent of Saint Barbara, then moved to the Faliede Bagijn Church in 1577 (now the location of the university museum) and in 1581 to a former convent ofCistercian nuns, a site which it still occupies, though the original building was destroyed by a fire in 1616.[12]
TheUniversity Library has more than 5.2 million books and fifty thousand journals. It also has collections of Western and Orientalmanuscripts, printed books, archives, prints, drawings, photographs, maps, andatlases. It houses the world's largest collections onIndonesia andthe Caribbean, collected by theScaliger Institute which studies various aspects of knowledge transmissions and ideas through texts and images from antiquity to the present day. In 2005, the manuscript ofEinstein on the quantum theory of the monatomic ideal gas (theEinstein-Bose condensation) was discovered in one of Leiden's libraries.[20]
In 2012 Leiden entered into a strategic alliance withDelft University of Technology andErasmus University Rotterdam for the universities to increase the quality of their research and teaching. The university is also the unofficial home of theBilderberg Group, a meeting of high-level political and economic figures from North America and Europe. Leiden University partnered withDuke University School of Law starting in 2017 to run a joint summer program on global and transnational law from its Hague campus.
The academy building of Leiden University in modern days
The university has no central campus; its buildings are spread over the city. Some buildings, like the Gravensteen, are very old, while Van Steenis, Lipsius and Gorlaeus are much more modern.[21]
Among the institutions affiliated with the university are TheKITLV or Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (founded in 1851), the Leiden Observatory 1633; the Natural History Museum, with a very complete anatomical cabinet; theRijksmuseum van Oudheden (National Museum of Antiquities), with especially valuableEgyptian and Indian departments; a museum of Dutch antiquities from the earliest times; and three ethnographical museums, of which the nucleus wasPhilipp Franz von Siebold's Japanese collections. Theanatomical andpathological laboratories of the university are modern, and the museums of geology andmineralogy have been restored.[citation needed]
TheHortus Botanicus (botanical garden) is the oldestbotanical garden in the Netherlands and one of the oldest in the world. Plants from all over the world have been carefully cultivated here by experts for more than four centuries. The Clusius garden (a reconstruction), the 18th-century Orangery with its monumental tub plants, the rare collection of historical trees hundreds of years old, the JapaneseSiebold Memorial Museum symbolising the historical link between East and West, the tropical greenhouses with their world-class plant collections, and the central square and Conservatory exhibiting exotic plants from South Africa and southern Europe.[citation needed]
The "Sweat Room" (Dutch:Zweetkamertje) is a small chamber in the university's Academy Building, traditionally used by doctoral candidates awaiting the results of their PhD defenses. The room is renowned for its walls covered with the signatures of graduates, including notable figures such asWinston Churchill,Nelson Mandela, and members of the Dutch royal family.[22] Originally serving as a meeting room for university curators, the Zweetkamertje became associated with doctoral examinations in the 18th century. Candidates would wait in this room before defending their dissertations, often experiencing considerable anxiety, hence the name. Over time, it became customary for successful candidates to inscribe their names on the walls as a rite of passage.[23] The tradition of signing the Zweetkamertje walls is a cherished aspect of Leiden University's heritage. The room features thousands of signatures, including those of honorary doctorate recipients. In 2014, a crowdfunding campaign successfully raised funds to restore the room's deteriorating plaster, ensuring the preservation of this unique historical record.[24]
A lecture hall in the Leiden University campus in the Hague.
In 1998, the university has expanded to The Hague which has become home toCampus The Hague, with six of the seven faculties represented and exclusive home to the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs, International Studies andLeiden University College The Hague, a liberal arts and sciences college. Here, the university offers academic courses in the fields of law, political science, public administration and medicine. It occupied a number of buildings in the centre of the city, including a college building atLange Voorhout, before moving into the new 'Wijnhaven' building on Turfmarkt in 2016.
The Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs was established in 2011, together with the University College, and one of the largest programmes of the Faculty of Humanities, International Studies.
The Leiden University Medical CentreEntrance of Gorlaeus building of the Faculty of ScienceHuygens and Oort Buildings of the Faculty of ScienceFaculty of Law, in the building that once housed Heike Kamerlingh Onnes' laboratory
The university is divided into seven major faculties which offer approximately 50 undergraduate degree programmes and over 100 graduate programmes.
Most of the university's departments offer their degree programme(s). Undergraduate programmes lead to either a B.A., B.Sc., orLL.B. degree. Other degrees, such as theB.Eng. orB.F.A., are not awarded at Leiden University.
Students can choose from a range of graduate programmes. Most of the above-mentioned undergraduate programmes can be continued with either a general or a specialised graduate program. Leiden University offers more than 100 graduate programs leading to eitherMA,MSc,MPhil, orLLM degrees. The MPhil is the most advanced graduate degree and is awarded by select university departments (mostly in the fields of Arts, Social Sciences, Archeology, Philosophy, and Theology). Admission to these programmes is highly selective and primarily aimed at those students opting for an academic career or before going into law or medicine. Traditionally, the MPhil degree enabled its holder to teach at the university levels as an associate professor.
ThePieter de la Court-building, the main building of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences
In addition, most departments, affiliated (research) institutes, or faculties offer doctorate programmes or positions, leading to the Ph.D. degree. Most of the Ph.D. programmes offered by the university are concentrated in several research schools or institutes.
Research building of the Leiden University Medical Centre
Leiden University has more than 50 research and graduate schools and institutes. Some of them are fully affiliated with one faculty of the university, while others are interfaculty institutes or interuniversity institutes.
Of the 110Spinoza Prize laureates (the highest scientific award of The Netherlands), twenty-eight were granted to professors of Leiden University. Literary historianFrits van Oostrom was the first professor of Leiden to be granted the Spinoza award for his work on developing the NLCM centre (Dutch literature and culture in the Middle Ages) into a top research centre. Other Spinoza Prize winners are:
TheStevin Prize laureates who have achieved exceptional success in knowledge exchange and impact for society include the following Leiden professors: health psychologistAndrea Evers, immunology technologistTon Schumacher and psychologistJudi Mesman.[46]
Kamerlingh Onnes was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1913. Three other professors received the Nobel Prize for their research performed at Universiteit Leiden:Hendrik Antoon Lorentz andPieter Zeeman received the Nobel Prize for their pioneering work in the field of optical and electronic phenomena, and the physiologistWillem Einthoven for his invention of the string galvanometer, which among other things, enabled the development of electrocardiography.
^During the period of theHabsburg Netherlands, which included the present-day Netherlands, theUniversity of Leuven (1425–1797) was the oldest university. After the separation of the northern Netherlands, the University of Leiden (founded in 1575) became the first and oldest university in theDutch Republic and later in its successor, theKingdom of the Netherlands.
^Schnappen, H. (1960).Niederländische Universitäten und deutsches Geistesleben von der Gründung der Universität Leiden bis ins späte 18. Jahrhundert. Neue Münstersche Beiträge zur Geschichtsforschung. Vol. 6. Münster.OCLC3783378.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Lunsingh Scheurleer, Th.; Posthumus Meyjes, G.H.M.; Bachrach, Alfred Gustave Herbert (1975).Leiden University in the seventeenth century: an exchange of learning. Leiden: E.J. Brill.ISBN9789004042674.OCLC1676723.
Otterspeer, Willem (2015).Good, Gratifying and Renowned: A Concise History of Leiden University. Translated by Eyck, John R.J. Leiden: Leiden Publications.ISBN9789087282356.OCLC945894132.
Schneppen, Heinz (1960).Niederländische Universitäten und deutsches Geistesleben von der Gründung der Universität Leiden bis ins späte achtzehnte Jahrhundert. Neue Münstersche Beiträge zur Geschichtsforschung Bd. 6. Münster.OCLC504114304.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
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