Social anxiety disorder is one of the most common disorders in children and young people. Social anxiety is characterized by excessive fear and avoidance of social situations. The primary fear in children with social anxiety is that they will be negatively judged by others. To date, the most frequently…

Innovation plays an essential role in firms' competitiveness and long-term success. It varies from different types, ranging from run-of-the-mill innovation that brings incremental changes to existing technologies to radical innovation that breaks from existing trajectories.

This focus area adresses the social context of health and well-being, with a particular emphasis on social inequality.

Ben de Jong, inlichtingen-deskundige en gastonderzoeker en -docent bij het ISGA aan de Universiteit Leiden, werd geciteerd in een artikel in het Algemeen Dagblad over topografische kaarten die de Russen tijdens de Koude Oorlog gebruikten. De Sovjet-Unie beschikte over een ongelofelijke hoeveelheid…

Serious forms of anxiety concerning other people’s opinions can hinder teenagers at school in social interactions or carrying out tasks. Psychologist Anne Miers is looking for ways to reduce this so-called ‘social anxiety’.

The [a]social creatures lab focusses on understanding social interaction with and between artificial creatures.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has also had dramatic consequences for Ukrainian students at Leiden University. Besides their intense concern about the fate of family and friends, they also face major financial problems. This also applies to Russian students who can no longer access their bank accounts.…

Mariska Jung, Jasmijn Rana and Looi van Kessel receive a €10,000 KIEM grant for

Did the Jochids leave their mark on the Grand Duchy, taking into account that the Lithuanian state was one of the main successor states of the Great Horde in the 16thCentury?

At Leiden University’s Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences we keep in touch with our alumni in various ways.

Design of a Linguistic System for Interstellar Communication Based on Logic

Explore how stakeholders in Gabon's Makokou region interact with forest resources in logging, agriculture, and mining, and their impacts on social and environmental changes.

Current social norms are unsustainable, making behavior change crucial for addressing the climate crisis. Social norms can shift rapidly after tipping points, but these are often only recognised in hindsight. To promote change, we need better predictive power, i.e. ability to detect early warning signs…

There are five institutes at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences:

The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (FSW) aims to play a leading role in gaining insights on current developments in society.

The largest international conference on English historical linguistics is coming to Leiden. From 7 June to 11 June 2021, the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) organises the International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL-21). Due to Covid measures, the conference takes…

Are you thinking about studying Social and Organisational Psychology? Learn more and watch the videos.

The Hague is the archetypal multicultural city. With a different language spoken on every street corner, this makes it a paradise for linguists such as Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade. Her book Languages of The Hague is a collection of fascinating conversations with the city’s non-native speakers.

How do young adults find their way in an increasingly complex society? In Leiden, as part of the GUTS project, we study how brain development and self-regulation play a role in this process.

Studying linguistics at the Leiden University Centre of Linguistics (LUCL) is a challenging but rewarding experience. There are few places in the world where such a broad range of languages are studied from so many different perspectives.

In this dissertation, a corpus of 595 seventeenth-century letters (mainly private ones) written between 1664 and 1672 is examined from a sociolinguistic perspective.

On January 30th, Lennart van der Velden succesfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Lennart on this great result.

The main goal of this project is to answer the question: how did Dutch acquire its own, distinctive linguistic characteristics?

What are the developmental pathways to social anxiety (disorder), the causal processes and maintaining factors? How do these factors interact in the development of social anxiety disorder? How can this knowledge be used to design and implement effective preventive intervention programs for youth?

Grammatical gender is famously the most puzzling of the grammatical categories. We have a solid typology of gender systems, yet exciting and unexpected patterns keep turning up which defy easy classification and straightforward analysis. Some of these question, stretch or threaten to cross the outer…

President Putin will be officially opening the Netherlands–Russia Year on 8 April in Amsterdam. Leiden Slavist Sjeng Scheijen was responsible for putting together the cultural programme. How much freedom did he have in doing so? ‘The Dutch photography project on the demolition of Sochi districts was…

This doctoral thesis elaborates Langacker’s reference-point model by applying it to lexical semantics.

Leiden University offers ambitious students the latest knowledge and the freedom to develop their own area of expertise.

Children with hearing loss often fail to pick up on nuances in other people’s emotional responses. As a result, they do not always understand what is going on. Yung-Ting Tsou, a PhD student at Leiden University, found that having more knowledge of emotions and social conventions can help them in their…

The general objective of this thesis is to determine a typology of verbal derivation in Ethiopian Afro-asiatic languages.

When and how does social anxiety develop? How can it go astray in some adolescents? How can we help troubled young people to attend school regularly and return to a normal developmental pathway?

Below you can find lists of Leiden-based and international organizations working on Central Asia, and an overview of useful resources on Central Asia.

This book presents the first comprehensive description of Tafi, one of the fourteen Ghana-Togo Mountain (GTM) languages, spoken by approximately 4,400 people in the southeastern part of Ghana. The description consists of thirteen chapters and is based on a corpus gathered during two fieldwork periods…

Each month, we publish an article showcasing how social science research and education contribute to solving societal challenges. Researchers, lecturers, students, and societal partners work together to make knowledge accessible and to make a difference. Through open science and engaged education, we…

This 862-page monograph is a grammar of Thangmi, an endangered Tibeto-Burman language spoken in the districts of Dolakha and Sindhupalcok in central-eastern Nepal.

Bleda Düring was interviewed alongside researchers working on ancient religions and primates, for an article in the Swiss magazine bref on the emergence of social inequalities. Although perspectives on the rise of social inequalities differ between these researchers they all agree more research on how…

LUCAS members are experts in the fields of literary history and theory, film and media studies, and art, architectural, and book history. Members of LUCAS teach in a wide variety of Bachelor's, Master’s, and Research Master’s Programmes.

Get to know us through our online and in-person events for prospective students!

You’ve been accepted! Leiden University looks forward to welcoming you as a new student. Your next step is to prepare for your studies. Below you can find some tips to help you get a head start as you embark on your studies at Leiden University.

As our society becomes increasingly complex, it is critical that we better understand how we can deal with fundamental issues such as societal and personal security, and resilience against threats to our security.

On 20 October 2021 the plenary of the European Economic and Social Committee adopted its opinion on the proposed EU strategy for the Schengen area.