Leiden van Leeuwenhoek Lectures on BioScience
In 2000, the Faculty of Science of Leiden University launched the BioScience Initiative (BSI). Its aim was to bring together those engaged in research in various disciplines, in order to stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration. This aim has mainly be realized by organizing a monthly colloquium, the van Leeuwenhoek Lectures on BioScience. All invited speakers are highly qualified and at the forefront of their field, which in most cases is interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary.
The Committee of the BSI comprises a chairman and a secretary. It has a number of contacts in several institutes belonging to the Faculty. With their help, the Committee makes up a standing list of potential speakers both from the Netherlands and abroad; the invitations are based on their advice.
The speakers generally stay in the Netherlands for several days so that there is the opportunity to brainstorm with members of the various research groups within the Faculty, and sometimes at other universities and research institutes. The BSI has won international recognition as well as respect within the Faculty, and has a loyal group attending the lectures regularly.
In 2010 the BSI felt that it was the moment to reach colleagues outside the Science Faculty by gaining the interest of scientists of the Faculty of Social Sciences (FSW), the Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC), the Technical University of Delft (TNW, TUD), and the Bio Science Park in Leiden, to become a BioScience Community.
From the year 2012 onwards the van Leeuwenhoek Lectures are organized partly in collaboration with the former Leiden Genetic Colloquium (LGC) of the LUMC. Both colloquia participate in the Leiden University Research Profile: BioScience, the science base of health. (http://research.leiden.edu/research-profiles/bioscience/bioscience.html).
Four lectures a year are organized by BSI as well as by the former LGC: two of these lectures are recorded in the van Leeuwenhoek Lectures series in the Faculty of Science and the other two in the van Leeuwenhoek Lectures series in the LUMC. Apart from these 4 lectures the van Leeuwenhoek Lectures series in the Faculty of Science and the van Leeuwenhoek Lectures series in the LUMC choose their own topics and invite their own speakers. Staff members and students interested in BioScience are very welcome to attend both series!
In the Faculty of Science the lectures are usually held on the last Thursday of the month, at 4 o’clock in the afternoon; when public holidays dictate, another Thursday is chosen.
Location: Gorlaeus laboratories, Cell Observatory (unless announced elsewhere).
