Welcome by the Dean
We have a century-old tradition in cutting edge education and research in mathematics, physics and biological sciences.
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We are committed to provide meaningful, rigorous and quality graduate experiences in a personalized environment. Our faculty members are inspired by the fundamental fascination with the unknown, the smallest particle, the youngest planet, the oldest galaxy, but at the same time, together with students, they collaborate in interdisciplinary teams with counterparts from the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), the Graduate School of Social Sciences and Delft University of Technology.
- Close collaboration with life science companies
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Our location, in the middle of one of Europe’s most successful Bioscience Parks, enables close collaboration with life science companies. Students can expand their intellectual horizons while deepening their expertise in an array of disciplines. They can learn about the fundamentals of science in a compelling and challenging environment, learn techniques to manipulate genes and their expression to allow for an unprecedented degree of control over biological processes, yielding new insights into the working mechanisms of cells, organs and organisms. These disciplinary and interdisciplinary challenges provide a unique learning and research environment for our graduate programmes.
- At our very core, we are social and collegial
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The Leiden Graduate School of Science aims to provide an academic and international environment with seminars, work shops, performances, exhibits as well as opportunities for dialogue, quiet study, and focused experimentation. We are committed to show that a graduate study in the sciences is far from solitary and monastic, but rather that, at its very core, it is social and collegial.
Many of our graduates consider their years of education at Leiden University to be some of the most fulfilling years of their professional lives. Our MSc and PhD alumni go on to hold positions in the front ranks of research and teaching, policy and administration across the world.
- We challenge you to achieve new heights of intellectual engagement
At the Leiden Graduate School of Science we challenge you to achieve new heights of intellectual engagement, while providing you at the same time with the support, tools and resources to aid in your success.
I am proud to be able to present our Research Institutes to you and the Master’s and PhD programmes that they are running.
Those master students that perform excellently are stimulated to enroll in one of the PhD programs. The Graduate School of Science will offer them a paid position for four years to do independent research, to follow advanced courses and develop personal skills, and finally defend their PhD thesis.
- Our philosophy is that students study in a research environment
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In Leiden, our philosophy is that students study in a research environment. Already at the start of their master, students become a member of the research institute that is responsible for the education programme. Master students follow courses that aim at the deepening of their knowledge, and spend an appreciable amount of time in research groups of the institutes.
Courses and working classes concern small groups, while the students are in one-to-one contact with a staff member during their research periods.The research environment stimulates the curiosity and is ideally suited to develop an academic attitude, to acquire knowledge and skills, to learn how to define, analyze and solve a problem, and to train how to present and discuss results. The emphasis on research does prepare the student for a career in science, but not only. The potential to approach a problem in an analytical way presents a quality highly appreciated also outside the natural sciences.
- Broaden your scope with MSc Specialisations
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For those students who want to broaden their scope, the Graduate School offers the possibility to combine the research training with elements of Science Based Business, Communication, and, for Dutch students, Education to get a qualification to teach.
- International orientation
The Graduate School has an international orientation. Not only comes an appreciable number of master and PhD students from abroad, the same applies to the scientific staff and the post-doctorate fellows. English is the language of the courses, the colloquia, the scientific meetings and the daily conversations in the research groups.
