Leiden’s expertise on the Middle East spans from ancient history to contemporary tensions in the region. By studying languages, cultures, religions, literature, art, and philosophy in in conjunction, we create an indispensable, in-depth understanding.

On Things That Talk, a website founded and developed by Fresco Sam-Sin, students and researchers describe objects from today and from long ago. By now, more than a hundred objects have been covered. Willemijn Waal, Emma Verweij and Frank van den Boom contributed to the content.

On December 7th & 8th, visual artist Sophie Ernst will defend her thesis The Magic of Projection; Augmentation and Immersion in Media Art, to obtain her doctoral degree. The public defense takes place in two stages. On Wednesday 7 December 2016 at 4 PM Ernst will publicly elucidate the artistic work…

Managers in the public and semi-public sector work in an increasingly complex and unpredictable environment, which demands new knowledge and competences but also offers tremendous opportunities. This will be the view presented by Zeger van der Wal, professor by special appointment in Public Administration,…

Politicians' statements often involve emotions, shaping public perceptions. This study highlights the role of emotions in EU foreign policy.

To what extent is the legislation and use of pre-trial detention of juveniles in the Netherlands in compliance with international children’s rights standards?

The purpose of this programme is to join knowledge and insights from linguistics, literary analysis, and rhetoric, for the purpose of developing a set of methods for the stylistic investigation of any type of text in Dutch.

What socio-cultural transformations did indigenous communities in the Lesser Antilles undergo from the late precolonial to the early colonial period in response to Amerindian­ European-African cultural encounters? How did Amerindian populations realign themselves in response to the colonisation…

Lions limit their prey, such as zebra and gnu, in their options for adapting to global warming. This is what Leiden researcher Michiel Veldhuis, from the Institute of Environmental Sciences, and a group of international colleagues have discovered. The research was published today in Nature Ecology &…

On December 12th & 13th composer and doublebass-player Christopher Williams will defend his thesis Tactile Paths to obtain his doctoral degree.

Het strategisch plan van de faculteit wiskunde en natuurwetenschappen (FWN) werd gepresenteerd tijdens de opening van het academisch jaar 2023-2024.

Starting 12 December, you will be able to enrol in a new Masterclass Effective Crisis Communication at the Centre for Professional Learning. Where do you start when your organisation's reputation is suddenly under threat? And how do you start and with whom?

The Leiden University PhD regulations are leading for the composition of the PhD dissertation. As Leiden University prescribes no strict regulations with regard to the structure and content of a PhD dissertation, LACDR has composed thesis guidelines, specified per research group. At the start of a PhD…

Alexander West defended his thesis on 20 May 2021

How can we let the sonic speak in public urban environments? What is the function and position of sound in our daily encounters with urbanity? How do we experience cities aurally? This was the topic of Marcel Cobussen's inaugural lecture on November 28th, 2016.

The Europa Instituut is pleased to announce that on 21 November 2016 a new handbook “EU State Aids” (31 Chapters, 1500 pages) was published.

The research presented in this thesis concerns one of the most important questions in software engineering of our time: how can we make sure that software is free from memory safety bugs?

Zeger van der Wal, Professor by special appointment Ien Dales Chair at Leiden University, and Mehmet Akif Demircioglu, Assistant Professor ar the Lee Kuan Yen School of Public Policy, researched the effects of ethical culture and ethical leadership on realized innovation.

In order to test theoretical expectations concerning individual decision-makers' search in response to negative performance, Joris van der Voet conceptually disentangles problem-defining and solution-generation as two distinct search objectives.

This article examines the consequences of stereotypical beliefs regarding gender, traits, and leadership styles for manager preferences.

On Wednesday 11 April, the festive ceremony of the leadership agenda took place, which was developed by the Leiden Leadership Centre in collaboration with partners from practice. The ‘Moving Forward with Public Leadership’ research and development agenda was handed over to Mayor of The Hague, Pauline…

In celebration of the release of his new book on changes in public administration, Prof. dr. Frits van der Meer, professor by special appointment of the CAOP chair: Comparative Public Sector and Civil Service Reform, handed the first copy to Gert-Jan Buitendijk, Secretary General of Ministry of General…

Environmental Humanities in the New Himalayas: Symbiotic Indigeneity, Commoning, Sustainability showcases how the eco-geological creativity of the earth is integrally woven into the landforms, cultures, and cosmovisions of modern Himalayan communities.

This recently released book takes a critical view of conceptual issues and practical problems that inevitably emerge when ‘excellence’ takes center stage in science systems in the Global South. What is ‘excellent science’? And how to recognize and assess it? After decades of inquiry and debate there…

On 29 June May 2022 Yujing Tan successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Jochem van den Boogert defended his thesis on 18 November 2015

Surreal Geographies recovers a forgotten archive of Holocaust representation. Examining art, literature, and film produced from the immediate postwar period up to the present moment, Kathryn L. Brackney investigates changing portrayals of Jewish victims and survivors.

The NWO just announced the results of the Vrije Competitie proposals. Paul Smith, professor at the French department is, as a member of LUCAS, one of three scholars within the Faculty of Humanities at Leiden University who has been awarded this grant.

The Middle Ages are becoming increasingly more popular: just look at the popularity of such ‘medievalist’ TV series as Game of Thrones and Vikings, and let’s not forget popular re-enactments of medieval battles. Leiden University is home to many specialists of this fascinating period and this new blog…

How can we explain the popularity of the Spanish comedia nueva in the seventeenth-century theatre scene of the Low Countries?

The pre-master's is a bridging programme for students who have applied for the MA Literary Studies but who, according to the Board of Admissions, still have deficiencies in their educational background. Once you have completed the pre-master’s programme, you will be admitted to the relevant specialization…

Get the most out of your studies at Leiden University by taking part in our extracurricular activities.

The research focuses on the understanding of symbolic stratigraphy of the land (through time) from the worldview of the People of the Rain (one of the Indigenous Peoples of southern Mexico), by studying contemporary cultural heritage in communities of the Mixtec Highlands.

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of the Faculty of Humanities with three partners in Uzbekistan.

See below for the full programme and abstracts of all papers.

As a supervisor, you are responsible for the supervision of your PhD candidate. Read here about your duties as a supervisor and the procedures relating to this, as well as the administrative steps in LUCRIS GSM.

This project investigates the full ecosystem of Middle Dutch prayerbooks in order to answer questions about their role in – and impact on – religion, culture, and society in the late medieval Low Countries.