Biologists Michelle Spierings and Ryan Bogaars are 2 of the 4 winners of the Leiden heat for the international FameLab competition in talking science during a public presentation.

Clinical psychologist Bernet Elzinga has been appointed as Professor of a personal chair at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. This professorship will contribute both nationally and internationally to the broader promotion of Leiden University in the field of stress and psychopathology.

The market is flooded with books and classes claiming ‘breathwork’ can help with mental health, sleep and even Covid-19. But are experts convinced? Cognitive psychologist Roderik Gerritsen explains the role of breathing on stress.

Psychologist Daphne Tona is one of the first to investigate a small nucleus in the brain stem 'in vivo' in living volunteers. That nucleus is involved in cognitive function and neurological and psychiatric disorders. With this research Tona is further mapping the brain. PhD defence on September 10.

Three Psychology students will present a poster of their thesis research on Alzheimer’s and dementia at the international conference AAIC Neuroscience Next. ‘I remind myself to recognise - without fear or shame - when I don't know something.’

Is our musicality unique? That’s what the Bird Singalong project aims to find out. And for that, they need the help of feathered friends from all around the world. ‘By researching how parrots learn songs, we also learn more about the origin of our own musicality.’ Do you have a parrot that can sing…

How do practice and theory reinforce one another in neuroscience? Professor Birte Forstmann’s inaugural lecture on 2 October will be about building interdisciplinary bridges between cognitive neuroscience and cognitive models. Her approach may lead to brain research with fewer side-effects for patie…

Disruption to the gut flora can affect your mental health. How could this knowledge be used to prevent stress-related disorders? This is what psychologist Laura Steenbergen will investigate with the aid of a project grant from the Leiden University Fund (LUF) and the Gratama Foundation.

PhD defence

Could ketogenic therapy change the future of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) treatment? Bret Scher sits down with Eline Dekeyster to explore how nutritional ketosis may support individuals with autism and other brain-based conditions.

Decades of evidence suggests that the trillions of microorganisms living in people’s guts, called the microbiome, can influence the brain. And now, new research says they might influence how people feel day-to-day, too. Laura Steenbergen explains.

For decades, academic publishing has followed a familiar script: Conduct research → write a paper → submit to a journal → (wait) → peer review → (revise) → maybe get accepted → finally, publish. Yet, this traditional model is increasingly under scrutiny, as several structural issues have become difficult…

Demonstration experiments are a potentially powerful instrument to improve the micro-macro thinking of students in secondary education. Therefore we want to design a practical and generative approach to assist teachers to develop lessons with a demonstration experiment.

A virtual hand that feels as if it is your own. Feeling happier because a virtual face is smiling with you. Cognitive Psychologist Ke Ma discovered using virtual reality that the way we experience our body is more flexible than we thought. Ma: ‘We can think up some fantastic applications.' PhD defence…

Issue 1

What is the role of memory in contemporary music?

The STRINGS project is mapping development pathways for science, technology and innovation that best address the UN Sustainable Development Goals. A consortium of seven universities led by Tommaso Ciarli at SPRU at the University of Sussex and the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) have worked…

Do you want to know the best reasons to study at Leiden University or want to know what's it like to live in the student cities Leiden or The Hague? Our students tell you why you have to choose Leiden University to study your bachelor's programme.

To be eligible for the Clinical and Health Psychology Research Master's specialisation at Leiden University, you must meet the following requirements.

To be eligible for the Research Master's specialisation Developmental Psychology, you must meet the following admission requirements.

Somatic symptoms, such as pain, itch, and fatigue have been shown to have a bidirectional relationship with mental symptoms. Although acute somatic symptoms serve some adaptive properties, chronic symptoms can instead lead to interference in daily activities and lower quality of life.

The Faculty of Science

ICLON conducts research into primary and secondary education.

docARTES is a doctoral programme for performers and composers. It offers a unique environment for critical reflection on musical practice.

Our team is involved in the translation and adaptation of several questionnaires, for research purposes. Information about each questionnaire is listed below.

In what way is constructivist logic able to account for both the role of the judging agent in inference and the universal claims of logical validity?

Experimental research

Parents may pass anxiety onto their offspring by exposing them to anxious behaviors in novel situations. Just as the parents’ anxious signals lead to anxiety, parents’ confident signals can ward off anxiety in the offspring. This project is seeking a new way to break anxiety transmission in the family…

The Co-Align Conference 2023 will be held on 16 May 2023 at Leiden University.

In the future, physicians may be able to identify dementia much earlier than they can today because a computer algorithm will be able to predict from brain scans how our memory is going to develop.

LUCAS members are experts in the fields of literary history and theory, film and media studies, and art, architectural, and book history.

The main interest of this project concerns learners’ perceived learning outcomes in massive open online courses and the factors related to their perceived learning outcomes.

Psycholinguistic research

This year Leiden University exists for 444 years! This will be celebrated together with the residents of Leiden and The Hague during various activities. One of these is scientists and residents doing research on plastics and psychology together.

Learning about circadian rhythms can help students to improve their sleep and overall well-being

At the Leiden Curious Minds Centre, our research focuses on the relationship of exploratory behaviour and discovery learning to curiosity and the way children regulate their behaviour and emotions. We want to improve our understanding of how children can and do become more and more the captain of their…

The MA Religious Studies at Leiden University is a one-year programme designed to equip you with the academic tools to critically study religion as a global and multifaceted phenomenon. It combines theoretical depth with methodological training, preparing you for both academic and professional caree…

The overall aim of the project is to investigate effective ways to strengthen vocational identity of at-risk adolescents in order to contribute to a successful transition from late secondary to post secondary lower vocational education or to work.

To be eligible for the Research Master's specialisation Social and Organisational Psychology, you must meet the following admission requirements.

Pupils and students learn best if they are actively doing something with the material. Professor Wilfried Admiraal is studying the best teaching methods and assignments to achieve this.

There are over 7,000 languages in the world and over half of the world’s population is bilingual. But how do all these people use their language? And how do these languages differ from one another? Under the slogan of ‘Interconnecting linguistic diversity,’ the researchers from the Leiden University…

From Tuesday 6 January till Tuesday 15 January 2026, NVIC organizes a new edition of the TAFL course. This intensive, interactive course is developed for (future) teachers of Arabic. It addresses both the practical aspects of teaching Arabic as a foreign language as well as the underlying linguistic…

The community is growing rapidly, select a faculty in the left panel to search and connect with members.

This project, South American population history revisited: multidisciplinary perspectives on the Upper Amazon (SAPPHIRE), investigates population dynamics in western South America on the basis of traces in the geographical, genetic, archaeological, ethnological, and linguistic record.

Learn about the Institute’s mission, structure and academic community within Leiden University’s Faculty of Humanities.

To be eligible for the Research Master's programme in Psychology at Leiden University, you must meet the following requirements.

The Classics Research Master, a specialization of the Classics and Ancient Civilizations programme at Leiden University, gives you the opportunity to study the Greek and Roman world with a focus on Greek and Latin language and literature.