Thank you for your interest in doing PhD research at the Graduate School of Social and Behavioural Sciences of Leiden University. How to start your PhD at our Graduate School is explained on this page.

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We are happy to give you 10 reasons why you should study the specialization International Criminal Law at Leiden University. Read more.

Leiden University gives you every opportunity to broaden your horizons, both literally and figuratively. By stimulating you to get the best out of yourself, for example, with additional, more challenging programmes.

Get the most out of your studies at Leiden University by taking part in our extracurricular activities.

My research project focuses on the development of a popular national agency in late nineteenth century Amsterdam and the question how ‘ordinary’ citizens imagined ‘the Netherlands’ through the experience and use of their urban surroundings.

So you graduated from the Creative Intelligence & Technology or Media Technology program? Congratulations, Master of Science! Here you find information that is relevant after your graduation.

Maurijn van der Zee, evolutionary biologist at the IBL, received the National Zoology Award for his research on the evolutionary success of the insects. The award was handed out last Saturday, the 17th of December, by Professor Jan Kammenga, chairman of the Royal Dutch Zoological society.

Paper dr. Anna Scott discussed in one-day conference on Pianism in the Long Nineteenth Century, featuring scholarship and interviews from across the globe.

The Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance and Society (VVI), in collaboration with the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), will organize a two day conference on the continued importance of adat law in present day Indonesia on 22 and 23 May 2017.

Australian cell biologist Melissa Little and Dutch physicist Robbert Dijkgraaf will each be awarded an Honorary doctorate at the Dies Natalis of Leiden University in February 2019. They are receiving these awards for their services to science.

The Leiden University Academy of Creative and Performing Arts will be proudly awarding an Honorary Doctorate within the upcoming 440th Dies Natalis.

The highly successful deep-sea telescope KM3NeT can now expand both its size and scope. Using a new type of microphone for underwater use, the telescope will attempt to detect the sound produced by neutrinos as they travel through the sea. The data collected will also be of great interest to other research…

Herman Paul (professor of History of the Humanities) has been elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). He will be officially installed on 30 September.

Brechtje de Jong, a Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences master’s student, and Ilse de Weert, a Pharmacy student, have won the KNMP Studentenprijs 2024. They received the award for their outstanding academic performance and research internships.

Carla van Baalen was awarded the Thorbecke Medal on 4 June. She received the award in recognition of her remarkable and varied oeuvre in the field of parliamentary history.

The highly successful deep-sea telescope KM3NeT can now expand both its size and scope. Using a new type of microphone for underwater use, the telescope will attempt to detect the sound produced by neutrinos as they travel through the sea. The data collected will also be of great interest to other research…

It was already the most cited publication ever written at our faculty, but now a new milestone has been reached. Last month, a paper by emeritus professor Jan Reedijk and his co-authors surpassed 10,000 citations — and the count keeps rising.

A professor from Leiden University has subjected various colleagues to intimidating and unacceptable behaviour for a longer period. These are the findings of an investigation carried out by the University’s independent Complaints Committee for Unacceptable Behaviour at the request of the Executive Board…

This international conference, held in Leiden form 22 to 24 May 2017, focused on adat law in Indonesia a century after the Adat Law Foundation (Adatrechtstichting) was set up in Leiden by the famous professors Van Vollenhoven and Snouck Hurgronje. In the decades that followed the Adat Law Foundation…

Jorik ter Veer studied Political Science in Leiden. How does he look back on his student days?

The skin has recently gained attention within body studies for its many specific cultural and social associations, in addition to its biology. This project aims to examine the different layers of meaning and the functions invested in the skin in ancient Greece: how did ancient Greek literary and medical…

The mission and vision of the Faculty of Humanties have been determined in the Faculty Strategic Plan (FSP).

Exploring the intersection of environmental conservation, indigenous cultural expectations, and human-nonhuman relationships in the Eastern Himalayas. Developing inclusive approaches to ecological preservation through community-centered research.

The School for Digital Deaf Studies 2025 is a hybrid school consisting of one week school in person in Ghana (15 - 24 August), followed by a one week school online later this year. It aims for the capacity building needed to expand academic research and education activities in digital Deaf studies,…

On the basis of the characteristic aspects of a picture, certain computers can tell us what the picture is showing. They can learn this in the same way that young children are able to learn to recognize images. Further improving these techniques opens the way to a whole range of new applications. Biology…

The recognition that there may be more, so-called allosteric binding sites on a given receptor has also fueled our synthetic efforts. Over the last few years we have focused on many drug targets (adenosine A1, A2A and A3 receptors, the mGlu2 receptor and a classic ‘anti-target’, the hERG channel) to…

The Leiden University Institute for Area Studies (LIAS) is devoted to the study of places in the human world from antiquity to the present time in a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective.

The Institute of Tax Law and Economics at Leiden Law School has three departments: the Department of Tax Law, the Department of Economics and the Department of Business Studies. The Institute brings together research and teaching at the point at which, on the one hand, law and, on the other, fiscal…

Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) is one of seven institutes housed within the Faculty of Humanities.

In the Department of Business Sciences, three chairs are established. Together, the chair holders lead the Turnaround, Rescue & Insolvency Leiden Research Team (TRI Leiden), which consists of legal and business science researchers from Leiden Law School. TRI Leiden aims, through an international and…

Sexuality is a fundamental part of being human. Yet, for many people with disabilities, it remains overlooked, unsupported, and surrounded by stigma. NWO-VIDI Sex, Care & Robots confronts that long-standing neglect with a project that envisions an urgent yet straightforward future: one in which sexual…

Call for Workshop Contributions

Leiden University provides ambitious students with the most recent and innovative areas of knowledge, and offers them the freedom to develop their own area of expertise.

The research master's specialisation Cognitive Neuroscience consists of five main parts: the general courses, the track-specific courses, the elective courses, a research internship and a thesis.

How are we celebrating our anniversary in 2025 on the faculty?

You have been admitted to a PhD track at Leiden University. What do you need to know when you start conducting your PhD research?

NL-BioImaging AM is a distributed research infrastructure aimed at promoting progress in the most cutting edge microscopy technologies and providing open access to these technologies to a broad community of academic and industrial users. All Netherlands bio(medical) microscopy centers participate.

The primary goal of Leiden University Diversity and Equality Network (LUDEN) is to promote a more inclusive working and learning environment.

In recent decades, the Netherlands’ struggle with multiculturalism has caused an upsurge in public interest in the relationship between state and religion. In this, the Dutch address a subject relevant not just to them, but to all of Europe.

The Access & Support Platform is a network of disability experts by experience, i.e. staff and students, at Leiden University.

The World Cultural Council (WCC) is an international organisation based in Mexico. Since 1984 the WCC has held an annual Award Ceremony granting prizes to outstanding scientists, educators and artists whose breakthroughs in the fields of knowledge, learning and research have contributed positively to…

How can we make the information in handwritten historical research reports accessible and searchable? Data scientists at Leiden University are working with other universities on a method that will improve access to cultural heritage.

On the basis of the characteristic aspects of a picture, certain computers can tell us what the picture is showing. They can learn this in the same way that young children are able to learn to recognize images. Further improving these techniques opens the way to a whole range of new applications. Biology…

On 5 February 2019, Alain Vannieuwenburg defended his thesis 'Pleidooi voor een lekenrenaissance'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. P.B. Cliteur.

The Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs is one of a total of seven faculties of Leiden University, located in The Hague.

There are over 7,000 languages in the world and over half of the world’s population is bilingual. But how do all these people use their language? And how do these languages differ from one another? Under the slogan of ‘Interconnecting linguistic diversity,’ the researchers from the Leiden University…

The research master's in Assyriology, a specialisation of the Classics and Ancient Civilizations (Research) programme, at Leiden University provides you with a multidisciplinary study of the languages, literatures and cultures of the Ancient Near Eastern world.

At Leiden University, researchers from all disciplines work together to find answers and design innovations in the field of artificial intelligence.

On July 8 and 9, 2022, Leiden University hosted the second conference of the research group on Institutions for Conflict Resolution, in collaboration with Radboud University Nijmegen and Utrecht University.