The biographer of Leiden University, Willem Otterspeer, has a new book out. In ‘De stad, de dood en de dichters’ (The City, Death and the Poets) he combines his love for the University and poetry with autobiographical reflections. ‘With my magnifying glass I discovered yet more new details in the pr…

From the very beginning, the Islam has known an oral tradition. It was only two hundred years ago that Muslims starting writing about the history of Islam, on rocks or other hard materials. Arabic epigraphy (study of inscriptions) turns out to be an essential tool in historical genealogy research. Abdullah…

Uncertainty and noise are frequently-encountered obstacles in real-world applications of numerical optimization. The practice of optimization that deals with uncertainties and noise is commonly referred to as robust optimization.

Birmingham and Leiden, as cities and as seats of global universities, shaped and were shaped by, empire. Both institutions have started to reflect critically on this legacy.

Leiden astronomer Anthony Brown is part of Nature’s 10: the ten people who mattered in science in 2018, according to the leading science journal. Working behind the scenes, Brown is the astronomer who coordinated the release of Gaia’s long-awaited bounty of Milky Way data.

The main topic of the book is the nature of inner aspect of the Verb Phrase, and the relation between the decompositional and the quantificational approaches to this problem.

Doctoral Thesis

Monique Koemans werkt sinds 2,5 jaar op de Nederlandse ambassade in de Verenigde Staten. 'Leiden is een opvallende rode draad in mijn leven.'

The process of unification and the character of the union are the central topics of Magnanimous Dukes and Rising States. Robert Stein mirrors continuity and modernisation in Burgundian times with the bankruptcy of the former dynasties and the decline of feudal government. The powerful towns played an…

This volume was edited by Jeroen Duindam, Jill Harries, Caroline Humfress, and Nimrod Hurvitz.

Master's student Vicente Fischer de Miranda Rodrigues is the winner of the KHMW Brewer Thesis Prize for History. He was awarded the prize for his research on donatism.

A group of confidants including a former student of Meijers managed to avert his deportation to a death camp. In her lecture on 27 November, Cleveringa Professor Marjan Schwegman revealed the history of the persecution of the Jewish Professor Eduard Meijers.

Three new initiatives will provide a more diverse view of Leiden’s academic history, literally and figuratively: a historical study on the background of students and scientists, a new book about the Academy Building, and two new sculptures of female scientists, Ewine van Dishoek, Professor of Molecular…

The art installation by Peter van der Putten and Jeroen van der Most was selected from nearly 500 submissions for an exhibition on climate change.

First author Scott Waitukaitis and principal investigator Martin van Hecke have made the cover of Nature Physics with their publication on a newly discovered effect. The Elastic Leidenfrost effect explains why hydrogel balls jump around on a hot plate making high pitched sounds.

In January 2020, Marja Spierenburg joined the FSW as the new Professor of Anthropology of Sustainability and Livelihoods. Let’s get to know her. ‘All my research is basically about nature conservation. I look at areas like national parks, but also at measures aimed at increasing the sustainability of…

According to New York Magazine, the massive open online course (MOOC) ‘The Rooseveltian Century’ by Professor by Special Appointment Giles Scott-Smith is one of the best online courses. We asked him why you should take the course and how it came about.

The Journal of the LUCAS Graduate Conference was founded in 2013 to publish a selection of the best papers presented at the biennial LUCAS Graduate Conference, an international and interdisciplinary humanities conference organized by the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS). The…

Nienke Beets of the Leiden Hortus botanicus has won the brand new Joke 't Hart Prize for connecting nature and art. For the botanical garden in Leiden, she developed a series of colourful plant icons and an educational board game. On 20 May, the Dutch Association of Botanical Gardens (NVBT) unanimously…

The Roosevelt Chair in New Diplomatic History is sponsored by the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies (RIAS) in Middelburg, and the new position further strengthens the connection between the RIAS and Leiden.

Anyone who has taken a walk through the centre of Leiden before might have come across him, an attentive group of tourists gathered around. After studying history, Koen van Toen, or Koen Marijt, started his own business. He now organises historical walks, among other things.

A Spanish translation of Herman Paul’s 'Key Issues in Historical Theory' has appeared under the title 'La llamada del pasado: claves de la teoría de la historia'.

Maritime conflict management is the regulation of conflict in relation to the sea. It comprises conflict enforcement, conflict resolution and conflict avoidance. How did victims of maritime conflicts claim and obtain damages or demand compensation or reparation?

A discovery made in Leiden helps not only to make natural gas from CO2 but also to store renewable energy. Research by Professor Marc Koper and PhD student Jing Shen shows how this process can be implemented in a cost-effective and controllable way. Nature Communications, 2 september 2015.

In this project the already developed parcel based historical GIS (HISGIS) for the Dutch province of Friesland (Frisia) will be extended with a series of crucial datasets and map layers.

From Galileo Galilei to Albert Einstein and from Anna Maria van Schurman to Anton de Kom: only a selection of the 25 authors who's books and ideas had extraordinary historical impact, in some cases even to this day. Leiden University Libraries and the National Museum of Antiquities jointly present the…

Given the accelerating appearance of antimicrobial resistance, there is an urgent need for more fundamental research into novel antibiotic strategies. The work in this thesis helps to address this global problem by developing new antibiotic compounds, inspired by the antibacterial mechanisms of the…

On 17 August 1945, two days after the Japanese surrender that also brought an end to the Second World War in Asia, Indonesia declared its independence. The declaration was not recognized by the Netherlands, which resorted to force in its attempt to take control of the inevitable process of decolonization.…

An interdisciplinary and innovative research group combining History, underwater archaeology, GIS and wood provenancing methods.

This book explores the links between maritime trading networks around Europe, from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic to the North and Baltic Seas.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, hundreds of thousands of Chinese labor migrants crossed the seas to the Dutch East Indies. On the tobacco plantations of northeastern Sumatra and in the tin mines of Bangka and Belitung, they endured long hours and harsh conditions. Their journeys formed part…

Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Augustan Rome: Greek culture in the Roman world.

This book argues that the combined literary, epigraphic and archaeological evidence supports the theory that early-imperial Italy had about six million inhabitants.

Barbarism: from the 18th century to the present.

This book investigates how the rulers of the Habsburg world empire developed and implemented a central maritime policy for the Netherlands and appointed an admiral of the sea or admiral-general for that purpose.

The Effects of the 1881 Liquor Act on the Leiden Alcohol Trade

How have British cities changed in the years since the Second World War? And what drove this transformation? This innovative new history traces the development of the post-war British city, from the 1940s era of reconstruction, through the rise and fall of modernist urban renewal, up to the present-day…

In a packed lecture hall at Wijnhaven, Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman succinctly summed up the essence of his argument on Wednesday 17 September: ‘Running a good society is hard’. His lecture held up a mirror to economists and policymakers.

This book provides an overview of critical scholarly reflections on the history of Dutch slavery and colonization, as well as how this translates into critical cultural practices.