Interfaculty lunch
Interfaculty Lunch: Internationalisation in the Age of De-Internationalisation
- Date
- Thursday 5 June 2025
- Time
- Location
- Herta Mohr
Witte Singel 27a
2311 BX Leiden - Room
- 0.10
Despite the government's aim to 'balance' internationalisation, Leiden University remains a highly international environment, with a variety of colleagues from different countries and collaborations with universities across the world. If you want to know more about which opportunities are available to early academics in Leiden and what the University's policy looks like, then join us for the next YAL Interfaculty Lunch. Free lunch is included!
Hung-Wah Lam (Leiden University, Head International Relations Office) and Carine de Wilde (Leiden University, Senior International Relations Officer) will update you on the opportunities that are available through Erasmus+:
The Erasmus+ programme offers a wealth of opportunities for young researchers and early career academics to enhance their professional development, expand their international networks, and strengthen their academic profiles. Rooted in the EU’s vision for a more connected and innovative European Education Area, Erasmus+ supports mobility, collaboration, and capacity building across borders and disciplines.Through staff mobility schemes, early career academics can teach or train at partner institutions abroad, gaining fresh insights, refining their pedagogical skills, and experiencing diverse academic cultures. Participation in Erasmus+ projects—such as Strategic Partnerships, Alliances for Innovation, or Capacity Building in Higher Education—also enables young researchers to collaborate on interdisciplinary research, develop project management skills, and contribute to impactful initiatives addressing societal challenges. During the lunch meeting, we will discuss the different opportunities and different schemes under the Erasmus+ programme.
Mechteld Bous (Leiden University, Senior Policy advisor International Affairs) will speak about Leiden University's policies and plans with respect to internationalisation.
Leiden University is proud to be an inherently international university. In the current political climate, this international mindset is not widely encouraged by politicians and government. However, we try to remain close to ourselves and keep building the partnerships we have been fostering over the years. Our vision on internationalisation builds on the university strategy and underlines the importance of a global network of partners for education collaboration, research activities and global impact and outreach. Only by collaborating across borders can we respond to the challenges of our time and find the solutions the world needs. There are several strategies in place to guide us in our ambitions to be a global university: a Europe strategy, an Africa Strategy, a Global Engagement strategy, etc. And there are instruments which support these strategies: the Leiden University Global Fund, Una Europa, LDE Global. We are now looking to create synergies and a multiplier effect between all initiatives in order to be more efficient and effective, given the financial restrictions on the horizon.