Serge Rombouts is a physicist whose PhD thesis was about functional MRI (fMRI). This visualises activity in regions of the brain. The appealing images of glowing brain regions that emerge from the computer are the result of calculations. According to Rombouts, this isn’t proper artificial intelligence.…

Charisma K. Lepcha (PI, Sikkim University), Pradyut Guha (co-PI, Sikkim University), Rajib Sutradhar (co-PI, Christ University Bangalore) and Erik de Maaker (Leiden University) have been awarded a two-year grant of USD 18.000 to conduct research on the impact of ‘green farming’ on the sensitive mountain…

The Agent Based Modelling for Archaeologists (ABMA) project is dedicated to developing Open Educational Resources (OERs) and accompanying materials for agent-based modelling (ABM) in Archaeology.

What was the stringed instrument known in medieval and early Renaissance Italy as “cetra”?

The bi-annual interactive seminars of the Platform for Postcolonial Readings are all about sharing our enthusiasm about our field of research and our eagerness to learn more about its theoretical intricacies. Our seminars, although informal, adopt a well-defined format. Each meeting is organized around…

Numerous beads and pendants of amber, jet and bone have been found in Dutch Neolithic and Bronze Age context, both in settlements and in graves. Because ornaments are personal items, they are closely linked with people’s identity.

Legal proceedings are often time-consuming, costly and stressful. Accessible out-of-court dispute resolution can sometimes offer a good alternative, but having access to reliable and efficient judicial proceedings remains equally important.

Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease, and vaccination may be an attractive method to induce long lasting protection against endogenous factors that contribute to the development of atherosclerosis. We have shown that for example vaccination against modified LDL or interleukin-12 limits…

On the 9th of June Bahaddin Budak successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

In this Yearbook you will find some fascinating examples of what was done in 2021, not only by ourselves, but also by our international colleagues.

The aim of this project is to investigate the (cost)effectiveness of two innovative forms of trauma-focused therapy for patients with childhood abuse related PTSD. The ultimate goal is to improve quality of care and contribute to treatment innovation for this severely ill target population.

The world is full of wars, and no war is without its dead. What happens to the bodies of fatal casualties of armed conflict? The winner of the faculty Jongbloed Thesis Prize 2015 is Welmoet Wels (Public International Law). Her thesis Dead body management in armed conflict: paradoxes in trying to do…

What are the biological effects of Chinese herbal medicine in regulation of cancer cell metastasis?

This interdisciplinary project applies data science techniques to qualitatively and quantitatively visualize the interaction between the University and the city of Leiden (Town&Gown) from 1575 onwards. One of the possible angles for follow-up research is diversity, especially from the international…

VODAN Africa started as a platform to enable access to critical data needed from Africa to fight the novel COVID-19. The initiative was inspired by the experience from the Liberia Ebola Virus outbreak in 2014: early detection requires contact tracing. Inclusion of the most vulnerable is critical to…

How to come to valid risk stratification of alcohol use disorder?

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

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

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.

How do dissociative states affect the ability to suppress emotional distraction (in the context of a working memory task) in patients with Borderline Personality Disorder?

The Theoretical Philosophy programme consists of 60 EC, to be completed in one year.

When you apply for admission, you’ll be asked to submit several documents.

The programme consists of 60 EC, to be completed in one year.

Imagining Urban Complexity introduces passionate and critical perspectives on the link between the humanities and urban studies.

On the university's birthday (8 February), pupils in the final year of junior schools in Leiden and The Hague will have lessons from a real professor.

The master's programme Comparative Criminal Justice at Leiden University focuses on criminology, criminal law and their mutual relationship. The programme offers an international comparative perspective, analysing criminal justice systems, legislation and policies in common law and civil law countri…

The lack of success of new CNS drugs in clinical development is in part due to the complexity of the CNS, unexpected side effects, difficulties for drugs to penetrate the brain, but also by the lack of biomarkers.

D. Fontijn, Quentin Bourgeois & Arjan Louwen (eds) (2012). This publication describes the history of “barrow landscape” near Echoput in Apeldoorn. Two burial mounds were examined and it became clear that our prehistoric predecessors carefully managed and maintained the open area for a long time, before…

Reference management software is software that enables scholars, researchers, and academics of all types to capture and use citations when creating their bibliography. These programs allow you to import citations from various databases and websites, create and organize bibliographies, and format article…

The goal of this book is to place architectural studies, in which people’s interactions with each other and material resources are key, at the crossing of both landscape studies and material culture studies, where it belongs.

Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums is a large-scale research project funded through the Dutch National Research Agenda, and led by Wayne Modest and Susan Legêne (Vrije Universiteit). Work Package 3 on “Value” phrases its main research question as follows:…

This project investigates the transposition of natural historical material, knowledge and vision, between different media (collection, scientific drawing, academic texts, the visual arts and/or literature) – a transmission that happens in the borderline between the traditional, emblematic worldview…

Steering soil microbiomes for better crop quality: the holy grail to improve human health?

Sharing Collections and Connecting Histories

What is the most effective way to eliminate tumour cells? The DNA repair mechanism could play an important role in increasing the effectiveness of chemotherapy in the fight against cancerous cells. If we are to influence this mechanism, we need fundamental knowledge about how the mechanism works.

Death, fire and identity in North-West Europe

A large amount of the EU's used or wasted textile is exported towards lower-income countries. Much of this exported textile is either burned or dumped and the amount that is truly reused or recycled is uncertain.

What are the various forms of inter-organizational collaboration in the public safety sector? How are different forms of inter-organizational collaborative arrangements related? What is the relationship between inter-organizational collaboration and innovation in the public safety sector?

Terms used by literary critics in characterizing the style of novels are often impressionistic (‘baroque’, ‘austere’, ‘vivid’, ‘cerebral’ etc.). Foundations for such evaluations are usually not provided. A scientific way of studying and explaining style is lacking in present day Dutch Studies. Suzanne…

How do Chinese language teachers negotiate who they are as teachers when they work abroad? This dissertation offers clear, practice-oriented answers. It examines teacher identity - the everyday answer to 'What kind of teacher am I here?' - as it is reshaped through classroom interactions, institutional…

What are the determinants of the willingness to administer rewards for cooperation and punishments for non-cooperation, and how do they influence people’s sanctioning behavior?

The archaeological heritage of South America is facing increasing threats due to the expansion of agricultural activities, infrastructure expansion, illegal wood harvesting, and the current fire emergency plaguing the Amazon and other biomes of the continent.

The Human Origins group at Leiden University studies the archaeology of hunter-gatherers, from the earliest stone tools in East Africa, more than three million years old, to the origin of sedentary societies towards the end of the last ice age.

What categories exist in the languages of pastoralists? Do these semantic concepts reflect universal or languagespecific tendencies? What (environment? culture?) governs the similarities (or the differences) attested crosslinguistically in cattle colour systems?

The Leiden | Islam interview series contains short documentary-style videos including interview flashes with leading scholars in the field of Islam and Muslim societies. With this series, LUCIS aims to show the value of unconventional insights related to Islam and Muslim societies, and to relate them…

Addressing Global Challenges through International Scientific Consortia

Sea-ing Africa explores how infrastructure in Ghana and Morocco shapes development, blending geopolitics, economics, and culture, impacting local and societal dynamics.

The Young Academy Leiden (YAL) is a select group of young academics at Leiden University. Founded in early 2019, it serves as a platform to bring young, enthusiastic and driven early career (post-PhD) academics together.

An account of a cognitive approach to historically informed staging.