The one-year master's programme Global Asian Studies, a specialisation of Leiden University’s MA in Asian Studies, allows you to create a tailor-made programme by choosing from a broad range of thematic, disciplinary or regional electives.

The War and Peace Studies track offers you a comprehensive understanding of the historical, theoretical, and practical dimensions of war and peace, while addressing the complex challenges of conflict and peacebuilding in the contemporary world.

Do you want to know more about Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology and what it is like to study in Leiden? Come to our online or on campus information events.

The 2026 Els Witte Annual Prize in Political Science has been awarded to Kathleen Brown. As a PhD candidate at Leiden University’s Institute of Political Science, she wrote a thesis on sovereign debt politics, risk, and state agency in emerging markets. According to the jury, which presented the prize…

Research Network Institute for History 2026-2029

View the course structure for the MSc International Organisation at Leiden University. Includes semester overview, ECTS credits, and course descriptions for the September start in The Hague.

Research Network Institute for History 2026-2029

We are committed to provide you a meaningful, rigorous and quality graduate experiences in a personalized environment with a cutting edge research infrastructure and internationally renowned supervisors

Combine training in Mathematics research with different aspects of business studies. Learn to build bridges between science and business.

We are committed to provide you a meaningful, rigorous and quality graduate experiences in a personalized environment with a cutting edge research infrastructure and internationally renowned supervisors.

By effectively integrating word-class scientific research and excellent education, you will become a professional astronomer with an internationally recognized degree.

Combine BPS research with different aspects of business studies. Learn to build bridges between science and business.

A new mathematical model may explain how body cells get their shapes and what makes them move within a tissue. The model provides fundamental knowledge for applications in tissue engineering, amongst other things. Publication in open-access journal iScience.

In the discs of dust and gasses around young stars, mysterious structures occur. Together with professor Ewine van Dishoeck, PhD student Paolo Cazzoletti investigate how we can explain these forms, such as rings, spirals and holes. On 12 December, he will defend his thesis.

The image of the Leiden microboat traveled all over the world, from the BBC up to Arab shipping blogs. But Daniela Kraft's research group has quite a few more different 3D printed microswimmers up their sleeves. Kraft receives a Vidi research grant for research into these variously shaped active par…

The Faculty of Archaeology's own home-grown journal Inter-Section has released a new volume. Inter-Section offers students and PhD candidates the unique chance to publish in a peer-reviewed journal. The new volume focuses on the materials that shape our world.

How can a single origami crease pattern be folded into two precisely defined target shapes? Researchers at AMOLF and Leiden University have created an ‘alphabet’ of 140 origami ‘puzzle pieces’ that allows them to do just that, as described today in Nature Physics. This discovery could help in the construction…

They are only a few tens of micrometres long — far smaller than the width of a human hair – yet these robots can swim, sense, navigate and adapt in ways that look surprisingly life-like. And all this without having a brain.

This abrupt climate change of 8200 years ago (the so-called 8.2k calBP climate event) has received wide attention among natural scientists, also because of today's rapid climate changes and their impact on our own society. The archaeological implications, however, have not been investigated so far.…

You can find an overview of events organized by the Platform for Post-Colonial Readings below.

History of Inequality and Power provides you with an in-depth understanding of the past and present that will contribute to solving current societal problems.

The one-year Master's specialisation in Ancient History: Empires, Societies and Cultures offers an attractive mix of theoretical knowledge and practical experience.

We investigate the processes underlying the patterns. We aim to explain biodiversity by investigating the distribution, function, development, and evolution of body forms, as well as physiological and behavioural variety among species. We collaborate with those specialized in describing, archiving,…

‘From the ground up’: The politics of burial and memory in the early Islamic world

Modern optimization algorithms offer solutions for architectural decisions like spatial, structural and energy efficiency. A young computer scientist from Leiden University co-authored a paper that won the Best Paper Award at a leading conference in Krakow during the summer.

Two talented academics from Leiden who recently obtained their PhD have been awarded a Rubicon grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The grant enables them to gain experience at a knowledge institute abroad.

At the Faculty of Archaeology, we investigate the development of human societies worldwide, from the earliest beginnings to modern times. We also study the heritage of mankind, which evokes this deep history, and which connects with, and informs, contemporary society.

Knowledge and culture subproject 3:

New Approaches to Understanding the Eastern Mediterranean during Byzantine and Ottoman Times

The general aim of the project is a description and analysis of the Leiden anatomical collections from a humanities perspective. The project investigates how historical and cultural practices and concerns have shaped anatomical preparations and how exhibitions of the anatomical body have informed cultural…

By working together with external social partners, the knowledge of our scientists finds its way into society.

Our lectures are open to anyone with an interest Find your inspiration for interdisciplinary research

In her dissertation, political scientist Alessia Aspide explores how public attitudes toward fiscal policy are formed. Her key finding: fiscal preferences are not shaped in a vacuum, but are deeply embedded in institutional, political, and societal contexts.

All microscopic objects, from enzymes to paint particles, are jittering constantly, bombarded by solvent particles: this is called Brownian motion. How does this motion change when the object is flexible instead of rigid? Ruben Verweij, Pepijn Moerman and colleagues published the first measurements…

PhD candidate Alex Tutwiler, from the Faculty of Archaeology, has received a grant from Archol, via the P.J.R. Modderman Foundation, to investigate how child labor shaped the bones of Dutch children between the 17th and 19th centuries. Using CT scans, she aims to build a more comprehensive picture of…

We are pleased to announce a call for papers for a workshop within the project 'Human Development and Its Outliers' on 26 and 27 March 2026 at Leiden University.

Manufacturers produce high-end technology mostly top-down with large machinery, but small particles are able to build structures by themselves from the bottom up. A major challenge is that these particles easily clump together. Leiden physicist Daniela Kraft has developed a method to use this phenomenon…

Researchers from Leiden University, the Netherlands, designed a novel metamaterial that buckles on demand. Small structural variations in the material single out regions that buckle selectively under external stress, whereas other regions remain unchanged. The research is published in this week’s Early…

Astronomer Donggang Wang, physicist Anne Meeussen and chemists Nick Gerrits and Elliot Mock: all four are receiving a Rubicon grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). This grant for young talent will enable them to spend two years doing research at a foreign university.

We are excited to announce the Just Peace Festival 2025, a vibrant platform for dialogue, collaboration, and action on the pressing global challenges of peace and justice!

Nanomaterials can pass much further along the food chain than was previously thought. The particles can change shape and size in each organism, enabling them to pass on to the next one in the chain. Researchers from the Institute of Environmental Sciences discovered this accidentally when using a novel…

PhD candidate Jiangnan Ding explores how you can design a thick slab of rubber in a way that it might act as a mechanical computer bit. This so-called mechanical metamaterial is pushed in a specific way to change its shape. ‘With a very simple material, we might be able to do simple calculations in…

What if AI doesn’t just support engineers, but actually works alongside them? A large consortium, including Leiden University, gets 3.7 million euros. They will explore novel synergies between engineers and AI, in industrial engineering design areas such as automotive engineering.

Cultural Anthropologist dr. Anouk de Koning has been awarded the Urban Citizen Fellowship to carry out research about democratisation of local democracy in Amsterdam.