This website showcases Leiden University’s contribution to the SSH Sector Plans.

The project 'Crossing Boundaries: Ethnographic Approaches in Research on Migration and Diversity' has been awarded funding through the LDE Governance of Migration and Diversity (GMD) Seed Fund 2025–2026.

From Wednesday 13 July 2022, for four days, Leiden is at the epicentre of European science, as it hosts Europe's largest interdisciplinary conference, the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF). We interviewed Marja Spierenburg, Professor in the Anthropology of Sustainability and Livelihood. In addition to being…

How do societies move forward with sustainable, effective and efficient management of Earth's water resources?

Study information

A 5 million euros grant from the Dutch Research Agenda allows Anouk de Koning and co-applicants Femke Kaulingfreks and Maartje van der Woude to study social interventions in eight Dutch cities in an innovative and interdisciplinary way.

The soya sauce in our kitchen cabinets is not a recent acquisition. This sauce is an important element in a long history of exchange between Asia and Europe. This is what Anne Gerritsen claims in her inaugural lecture for the Kikkoman Chair on Friday 12 December.

In his new six-hour series, Africa's Great Civilizations, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. takes a new look at the history of Africa, from the birth of humankind to the dawn of the 20th century. One of the experts interviewed in the programme is our own dr. Sada Mire.

Between 1993 and 2000 the Faculty of Archaeology had a formal cooperation with the Service Régional de l’Archéologie de la Guadeloupe, Direction Regional des Affaires Culturelles (DRAC) and the then director André Delpuech. During that period surveys and excavations were carried out at a number of s…

For a long time, the painful history of colonial slavery received too little attention. People whose ancestors lived in slavery are now asking critical questions about how we should address that past. Leiden University researchers study the history of colonialism and slavery and their long-term impact…

Discover the admission requirements for the MSc in Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict and Development at Leiden University, including bachelor qualifications, ECTS prerequisites, and English language criteria.

To be eligible for Applied Archaeology at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

Leiden University offers several services to help you prepare for the jobmarket. But where you end up depends on the chosen study direction, your own skills and interests.

Review the admission requirements for the MSc Democracy and Representation at Leiden University: bachelor’s degree in Political Science or related field, 80 ECTS in relevant courses, and proficiency in Social Science research design.

Academic staff and students blog about their research and teaching.

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 is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden University College with Royal Thimphu College in Bhutan.

Review the MSc The Politics of Artificial Intelligence admission requirements at Leiden University: bachelor’s degree in Political Science or related field, 80 ECTS in relevant courses, and proficiency in Social Science research design.

Discover the admission requirements for the MSc in International Politics at Leiden University in The Hague: bachelor degree, 80 ECTS in political science, and English language proficiency (IELTS/TOEFL).

Discover the admission requirements for the MSc International Organisation at Leiden University in The Hague. Includes 80 ECTS, English test scores (IELTS/TOEFL), and supporting documents.

To be eligible for Archaeology (research) at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

Review the admission requirements for the MSc Dutch Politics at Leiden University: required bachelor degree, academic credits, and language proficiency criteria.

Check the admission requirements for the MSc Political Theory: Legitimacy and Justice at Leiden University — bachelor degree in (or related to) Political Science with sufficient relevant credits and, if needed, research‑methodology background.

Papers written on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the institute of Prehistory, Volume II.

This thesis, conducted in the framework of ERC Starting grant project BABYLON (PI: Caroline Waerzeggers), presents an investigation into Babylonian society, focusing on the city of Borsippa during Neo-Babylonian and early Persian rule (c. 620-484 BCE).

Was the progressive colonial civil servant the precursor of the postcolonial development-aid worker?

Cristina Grasseni, Federico de Musso, Ola Gracjasz, Maria Vasile, Vincent Walstra and Marilena Poulopoulou are part of the 'Food citizens?' Research project.

The aim of the project is two-fold: first, to further scholarly understanding of the human dynamics that shaped the growth of Dorestad in a broader, international context; and second, to test the potential of multi-isotopic analyses on an early medieval Dutch assemblage.

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 second and final volume of this co-authored study has just been published by J.B. Metzler. This second monograph explores the history of the concept of barbarism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

- Case study of the Hungarian Archaeological Mission in Abdallah Nirqi in 1964 –

The master’s in African Studies combines world-class scholarship with practice-based learning.

The two-year master's programme in Japanese Studies, a specialisation of the MA in Asian Studies, offers teaching by leading academics and a multi-disciplinary approach to the study of the East Asian region.

The master’s in East Asian Studies, a specialisation within the master's of Asian Studies, combines an exceptional range of courses with advanced language training and outstanding resources and expertise.

LUCIS is an interfaculty knowledge centre offering a multidisciplinary and comparative view on Islam and Muslim societies.

Assesses the importance of Merleau-Ponty to current and ongoing concerns in contemporary philosophy.

With Leiden University Press, LUCIS publishes a peer-reviewed book series “Debates on Islam and Society” aimed at a broad audience. A number of books in this series are available in open access.

The APL (Analecta Praehistorica Leidensia) is published once a year and showcases the increasingly diversity of research conducted at the Faculty of Archaeology. The APL currently forms a showcase for the faculty as a whole in which all employees can publish their research. By alternatingly publishing…

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden University College with three different partner universities in Kenya: Kenyatta University, Maasai Mara University, and the University of Nairobi.

We live in a data-drenched society awash with numbers. An inhabitant of the democratic polis of Athens (5th and 4th centuries B.C.E.) increasingly found himself surrounded by numerical data. This project aims to analyze the communicative functions and the political meaning(s) ascribed to these public…

This interdisciplinary project explores the promise and perils of human rights as a suitable framework for addressing the challenges posed by the governance of digital platforms.

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?

Today’s socio-economic challenges aren’t new. In the centuries after the retreat of the Roman state people with different backgrounds and with different ways of life somehow managed to build and maintain a complex economic system in northern Gaul that would produce the ruling dynasties of Europe. By…

Within 3 months of the start of the PhD project, your supervisors and you will draw up a Training and Supervision Plan in consultation with you and the other members of the supervision team. 

A mere day after setting foot ashore in the Bahamas on October 13th 1492, Christopher Columbus notes the broad foreheads of the inhabitants of the Americas. These permanently altered cranial shapes are deliberately created through the application of pressure to the head of the infant in the first years…

Political Islam is not new to the Middle East, but the appearance of ISIS has stretched the phenomenon to the extreme.

Are you curious about why people are the way they are - and how they change? At Leiden University, you’ll explore social behaviour, ideas and cultures, from the past to the present and from local to global. From major cities to world religions, from philosophical questions to education and upbringing…