How did early humans use their hands, and what can that tell us about our shared past? Cora Leder, newly awarded recipient of the NWO PhD in the Humanities grant, is set to find out.

How does the government know whether science policy has the desired effect? According to Professor Barend van der Meulen, a variety of evidence about the effectiveness of science policy and proper gathering of this evidence are more important than a strict scientific method. Inaugural lecture 27 Ma…

The LGI is pleased to annouce that seed money has been granted to Dr. Miguel John Versluys (Archaeology), Prof. Caroline van Eck (Art History) and Prof. Pieter ter Keurs (Anthropology) for their research on Globalisation, materiality and the transference of cultures.

Teacher Dr. Elke Devroe introduces group role-play on actual themes of governance of crime and social disorder. In the final session of the course, the classroom was transformed into a theatric scene where students applied their insight into the contemporary debates on various issues in governance…

My first fieldwork in Nigeria began up in the air, as we were approaching the runway of Lagos’ Murtala Muhammed Airport.

For the Netherlands, like many other European countries, the nineteenth century was a period of strengthening national identity. Anne Petterson describes how 'the ordinary people' of Amsterdam expressed their patriotic feelings differently from how the elite had hoped. PhD defence 24 January.

On Saturday 25 June, the Europa Institute of Leiden University hosted the 61st Leiden-London Meeting, an annual event organized jointly by the Europa Institute and the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL). This year’s meeting had “Interdependence, cooperation and strategic…

A flake of limestone (ostracon) inscribed with an ancient Egyptian word list of the fifteenth century BC turns out to be the world’s oldest known abecedary. The words have been arranged according to their initial sounds, and the order followed here is one that is still known today. This discovery has…

On January 25th, artist Jonas Staal will defend his dissertation which explores the development of propaganda art from the 20th to the 21st century.

Translating ancient texts, filling in missing parts of clay tablets: articles are popping up more and more often about the possibilities offered by artificial intelligence for researching documents in the oldest scripts. Are we better off leaving the deciphering of ancient texts to computers from now…

Leiden University and African Child Policy Forum hold ‘ground-breaking’ workshop on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and human rights in Africa

This fall, LUCIS will have the pleasure of welcoming Professor Hugh Kennedy from SOAS University of London to Leiden. He is the fourth Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain Cultural Foundation Visiting Professor in Arabic Culture at Leiden University.

A Leiden literary scholar, paintings of the Winter King and Queen and a string of pearls brought together by an exhibition in the Hague. Dr Nadine Akkerman: ‘The Winter Queen was a highly political person who used every means – including pearls - to showcase her royal lineage.’

We have to do all we can to stop climate change. But: the Earth is more resilient than we thought. That is the surprising conclusion of an international team of ecologists and mathematicians, which included Leiden mathematician Arjen Doelman. The team discovered that ecosystems can still avoid tipping…

A pop-up exhibition ‘All the Einsteins’ will open at Rijsmuseum Boerhaave on 29 May 2019. This is the first time that the museum will present its entire collection of handwritten letters and documents by Einstein. The exhibition marks, among others, the publication of the first photo of a black hole…

This fall, LUCIS will have the pleasure of welcoming Professor Emeritus Geert Jan van Gelder to Leiden. He is the second Abdulaziz Saud Al-Babtain Cultural Foundation Visiting Professor in Arabic Culture at Leiden University.

Which two scientists will present their research best in three minutes? It could be the one with the most supporters.

Birds around airports are more aggressive and sing as if they have hearing loss. Collaboration between researchers of Manchester Metropolitan University and the Institute of Biology Leiden has led to surprising new findings about the impact of anthropogenic noise on birds around airports. Publication…

After diving into the murder trial of nurse Lucia de Berk, statistician Richard Gill became a leading expert on the statistics of medical murder cases. Together with colleagues, he now wrote a peer reviewed report about the statistical missteps in past medical murder trials. It gives recommendations…

The 21 universities of the League of European Research Universities have an enormous economic impact: more than 900,000 jobs and 71.2 billion euros in 2014. Each job at a member university results in 6 jobs elsewhere. Leiden University is a member of the League.

All supermassive black holes in the centres of galaxies appear to have periods when they swallow matter from their close surroundings. But that is about as far as the similarities go. That's the conclusion reached by British and Dutch astronomers from their research with ultra-sensitive radio telescopes…

Scientists of the faculty of Governance and Global Affairs research completely different subject, among which terrorism, cybercrime and migration. In the upcoming weeks we will give the floor to several of our very best researchers. In this episode: Constant Hijzen researches secret services.

On Wednesday the 23rd of March 2016, Prof. Richard Leakey, the world renowned palaeoanthropologist and conservationist from Kenya and Honorary Member of the LEAD Programme, visited the LEAD Office to contribute to a PhD Workshop.

These are turbulent times in the UK. The cost of living is high, leaving many people struggling to make ends meet, and these past few months have been tumultuous in terms of politics. University lecturer Anne Heyer explains what impact this can have on people's political perceptions and participatio…

Professor Nira Wickramasinghe has won the American Historical Association John F. Richards Prize in South Asian History for her book Slave in a Palanquin. Colonial Servitude and Resistance in Sri Lanka' (Columbia University Press: New York 2020).

The logic seems inescapable indeed. The bigger the population, the higher the probability it contains an Einstein. Hence, bigger populations are more likely to develop complex culture.

Statement from the Editorial Board of the Common Market Law Review regarding the UK Brexit referendum campaign:

Which two scientists will present their research best in three minutes? It could be the one with the most supporters.

Last friday, an article appeared on Ruetir about 'donut thinking' in Amsterdam. Shivant Jhagroe, assistant professor at the Institute of Public Administration, talked about how 'donut thinking' could work in Amsterdam.

Dr Erik Kwakkel, Leiden specialist on medieval manuscripts, has one foot in the world of medieval book production and the other firmly planted in the modern environment of social media. He is co-editor of Author, Reader, Book aimed at specialists in medieval authorship, and tweets daily to bring the…

The distinguished academic journal Science published an article about an important and extensive series of measurements made by the Centre for Isotope Research (CIO) of the University of Groningen. The measurements concern the dating of a lake bed sediment in the Suigetsu Lake in Japan.

Marcia Brandenburg, PhD candidate at Clinical Child and Adolescent Studies in Leiden, is the winner of the Dutch final of the science communication competition FameLab. She will represent the Netherlands in the final.

'This one is really for the coffee lovers out there, but tea drinkers and co. need not tune out because this spot has got more to offer than just coffee.' Rachel Quennell, student of International Studies in The Hague, is a mine of information for lovers of good coffee.

On Thursday 24 November 2016 Moses George will defend his PhD dissertation ‘Legal Implications of Airport Privatization in India’. The defence will commence at 11.15 hrs, in the Academy Building of Leiden University. The Supervisors are Professor Pablo Mendes De Leon and Professor Brian F. Havel (DePaul…

Dear students and researchers at our institute,

The first global safety summit on Artificial Intelligence is a fact. Prime Minister Sunak organised the conference because he believes that the issues related to AI can only be dealt with by governments. But the real issue with AI remained undiscussed at the summit, Reijer Passchier claims in Dutch…

Today, Leiden University announces who the new Cluster Zuid on the Witte Singel will be named after. Summer 2023, a ballot determined the name of the complex on the former Van Wijkplaats/Van Eyckhof, which is expected to be completed in March. It was already established that the complex would be named…

This week Dr. Lara Weiss (of the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden), who together with Dr Christian Greco (of the Museo Egizio in Turin) heads the project "The Walking Dead: The Making of a Cultural Geography in Saqqara", was visited by the NVIC team. During the visit she introduced them to the…

Improvisers in experimental music do not record their music in a conventional score, but in ever-changing 'tactile pathways'. This is the proposition put forward by researcher Christopher Williams. PhD defence 13 December.

Michael Ignatieff, Canadian author, university professor and former politician, has been appointed Cleveringa Professor for the 2013-2014 academic year at Leiden University, the Netherlands. Professor Ignatieff will deliver the Cleveringa lecture on 26 November 2013.

A major new study of ancient DNA has traced the movement of people into southern Britain during the Bronze Age. In the largest such analysis published to date, scientists examined the DNA of nearly 800 ancient individuals. Publication in Nature on December 22, 2021.

Foreign investments in the Dutch East Indies during the colonial period could have been of more benefit to the Indonesian economy. Foreign investments in the Dutch East Indies during the colonial period could have been of more benefit to the Indonesian economy. But the complicated relationship between…

The latest book by political scientist Matthew Longo came out this spring: 'The Picnic: A Dream of Freedom and the Collapse of the Iron Curtain'. In addition to its many favourable reviews, the book received the prestigious Orwell Prize this summer, which highlights exceptional books on politics.

Leiden archaeology is booming. Our archaeologists take part in major international projects covering not only the Netherlands but large areas of the globe. Caspar Reuvens (1793-1835) was also keen on this division: he had one foot in the Netherlands and the other in the Mediterranean world.

Yliana Rodríguez was in the middle of a second fieldtrip in the Falklands researching Spanish-English language contact, when global lockdown measures were announced. Sit back, relax and enjoy reading about Yliana's research into a unique speech community.

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has been able to acquire an exceptional two-volume Miao album. The acquisition was made possible by the Rombouts Fund for Chinese collections. The extraordinarily well-preserved work contains 70 full-page paintings on silk, depicting non-Chinese peoples in the area…

Primate and test specialist Jane Goodall paid a visit to the Hortus botanicus in Leiden on 21 May for a ‘meet & greet’. Goodall, a world-famous researcher and nature protectionist, was presented with an orchid named after her and used the occasion to draw attention to the issue of plant protection.…

On Thursday, May 16, Leiden University Libraries is organizing a workshop on early photography of the Middle East. In the workshop, curator Maartje van den Heuvel shows photos of three adventurous Dutch nineteenth-century travel and photography pioneers. They created beautiful photos and photo albums…

More than a thousand 17th- and 18th-century Dutch letters from seized ships are now available online. The letters are a gold mine for researchers wanting to study the everyday language used by men and women during this period.

From indigenous space to colonial setting. Archaeological investigations at El Chorro de Maita in Cuba wins prestigious prize.