Sneak peek at 2025
How will we celebrate our anniversary in 2025?
Together: with students, staff, alumni and all our other friends. We are all celebrating 450 years of Leiden University. Here is a sneak peek at a few events. The full schedule will be published here at the end of 2024.
Plants & Planets
The Hortus botanicus and Leiden Observatory are launching Plants & Planets especially for our anniversary. Marvel at what science, art and nature can tell us about how life arose in this new presentation at the Old Observatory visitors’ centre. What is the source of life? What makes organisms grow? And what does that mean for us? Plants & Planets shows the great strides scientists have made in the past century.
Prepare to be immersed in an all-encompassing experience: a journey through space and time. You may end up with even more questions than now. Because how exactly life can arise is still one of the greatest mysteries for humanity. Starting from 7 February.
Contact: communicatie@hortus.leidenuniv.nl
Exhibition in Hortus botanicus and online
What would a university be without its students? We are celebrating 450 years of study with an exhibition that puts all our students from the past 450 years in the limelight. How did they study in the past? And how do they study now?
‘The eternal student’ is therefore seen in a very different light. Travel back with us and discover not only the differences but also the many similarities with today’s students. Peek behind the scenes at our teaching: from the anatomical theatre to lectures with VR headsets, from exams at professors’ homes to exams online.
And of course, studying is not the only thing students do: student protests, student houses and student associations also figure in the exhibition. And what about the future of studying itself?
Find out more in this anniversary exhibition. Visit it from April to October 2025 in Leiden’s most beautiful garden, the Hortus botanicus. And if you are not in the area, you can always see the exhibition online.
Alternatively, why not visit us in The Hague? Leiden University has had a campus there since the end of the 1990s. That’s why we are also celebrating 25 years of Campus The Hague with an exhibition there.
Contact: Linda van Putten
Canal Concert, 29 June 2025
Time for some music. On the prettiest spot on Leiden’s canals: Rapenburg. All music lovers are welcome at this free open-air concert celebrating 450 years of Leiden University. A special edition of the Rapenburg Canal Concert, in collaboration with the foundation that organises this annual event. Mark your calendar: Sunday 29 June 2025. Music on and by the canal – free admission for all!
Contact: Eveline van Boxel
Sport
Our anniversary won’t be an anniversary without a bit of sport. Because sport brings us together: shoulder to shoulder on the start line and cheering each other over the finish. So we are going to run (or walk) in Leiden and The Hague, and we are also taking to the water.
Contact: Dieuwertje Peters
