The linguistic project constitutes the connection between the two other subprojects. It consists of two parts.

The proposed project evaluates how the vulnerability of migrant men and women was constructed in political, public and media discourses, and how differences in the constructed vulnerability influenced the decision to migrate, the migration process, and the subsequent settlement process.

This project studies the development of civic engagement in the Netherlands from the mid-eighteenth until the mid-nineteenth centuries, through a focus on the local and regional levels.

This November, Leiden Jewish Studies Network has presented the Best Thesis in Jewish Studies award to a highly talented Leiden graduate, Lotte-Sofie Groenendijk, and awarded an honorable mention to Nasreen Javanjoo. The two theses stood out with their insightfulness and academic rigor among others written…

A new study published in Archaeometry describes the unexpected results obtained from analyses of five human teeth discovered in a ritual cache at an enslaved African plantation site on the island of Saba in the Caribbean.

Reinout Vriesendorp has been Professor of Insolvency Law since 2016 as well as a partner at law firm De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek. For nine years, he has advanced multidisciplinary collaboration, internationalisation and high-quality education. On 9 May, he will deliver his valedictory lecture after…

National Meat Free Week (Nationale Week Zonder Vlees, 7–13 March) is an initiative to reduce meat consumption. Assistant professor Paul Behrens is studying what impact a change in our food consumption would have on the world. What, according to him, are the main reasons to switch to a (mainly) plant-based…

Archaeologist Eduardo Herrera Malatesta reflects on the unfamiliarity with the pre-Columbian past that he encountered during fieldwork in the Montecristi province in the Dominican Republic.

Target selectivity is an important aspect of any drug molecule, and certainly a parameter to be optimized. That is not trivial for a number of reasons. First of all hundreds of drug targets (receptors, enzymes, ion channels) exist, and no single lab in the world has assays for all of them.

Dynamics of material, social and ideological relationships in the pre-Columbian insular Caribbean

Corinne Hofman (Professor in Caribbean Archaeology) has been awarded 15 million euro by the EU for her archaeological research on the colonisation of the Americas. She will lead the ‘NEXUS 1492’ project together with colleagues Davies (VU), Brandes (Konstanz) and Willems (Leiden).

Why did 'character', 'habit', and 'virtue' serve as key terms in late 19th and early 20th-century scholarly correspondences, biographies, and obituaries? Why did scholars around 1900 display so much interest in the working habits and character traits of what they called the 'scholarly self'?

More than fifty researchers are working together to describe the colonisation of the Americas from the Amerindian perspective. In November they will be meeting for the first time, in Leiden. How is Corinne Hofman, Leiden Professor of Archaeology managing the international megaproject Nexus 1492?

Jed Wentz realized a unique concept: 19-th century melodramas for voice and piano.

A thousand-year-old tooth has provided genetic evidence that the so-called

This research deals with the royal houses of the Vijayanagara Empire and four of its successor states: Ikkeri, Tanjavur (under both the Nayaka and Bhonsle rulers), Madurai, and Ramnad. This study is thus concerned with dynastic politics and imperial legacies in south India between the 14th and 18th…

On Wednesday, September 17, 2025, Prof.dr. Sarah Cramsey convened a book manuscript event at the beach of Wassenaar near Leiden to discuss her new book 'Caring through Catastrophe: Jewish Children and their Caretakers during the Holocaust' which is under contract with Indiana University Press.

Leiden heritage expert Sjoerd van der Linde is carrying out research on the heritage of the Caribbean region. This research forms part of the international Nexus 1492 project on the consequences of colonisation for the Americas. ‘We first have to find out what the local population wants.'

Conference

We are happy to announce that the following missions have been approved by the Ministry of Antiquities, pending final security confirmations:

On the evening of Tuesday January 31st, the physics institute organizes its triannual meeting for over seventy high school teachers. The program consists of lectures on developments in modern physics and the latest initiatives in the world of education.

Eric Storm’s book Nationalism: A World History has been reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement and Foreign Affairs.

Historian Eric Storm discusses how nationalism shapes our world in Princeton’s UP Ideas podcast.

Professor Eric Storm was recently reviewed in the Indonesian newspaper Merdika, which praised his innovative approach to historical analysis and his relevance in today’s global discourse.

Since the 1950s, the expenses in primary and higher education have grown towards each other. The costs per pupil in primary education rose, while the expenses decreased per student in scientific education. An article about this appeared in the NRC, with comments on the historical development of education…

Associate professor Eric Storm’s book on nationalism has been reviewed in two Spanish newspapers. Three newspaper published interviews with Storm.

Associate professor Eric Storm discusses the return of imperial ambitions in global politics on The Conversation. He argues that leaders like Putin, Xi, and Trump challenge the post-WWII international order.

Associate professor Eric Storm’s book on nationalism has been reviewed in several newspapers. Storm was also interviewed by newspaper Ara.

Archaeologist Hayley Mickleburgh studies how bodies decompose. This helps with the reconstruction of changes in the burial rituals of Caribbean Indians.

82 years ago Queen Wilhelmina fled to England. Henk te Velde tells about her on the Australian radio show 'Nightlife'.

The Wall Street Journal reviews historian Eric Storm's new book 'Nationalism: A World History', which examines the complex history and development of nationalism and nation-states.

The Washington Post reviews Nationalism by university lecturer Eric Storm. In this book, Storm explores how nation-states became the dominant political organizational form.

The battle at the Tollense valley took place in 1300 BC, the Bronze age. The archaeological site now is being threatened by climate chance. In an international collaboration, archaeologist Martijn Manders and his students are involved in the ongoing fieldwork.

A European team of astronomers has discovered the largest stellar black hole in the Milky Way. It is more than thirty times as massive as our sun and is located in the constellation of Aquila, about two thousand light-years from Earth. The astronomers stumbled upon the black hole by chance while preparing…

An international team of researchers, involving members from the ERC Synergy project NEXUS 1492 based at the Leiden University, the Universities of Oklahoma, Copenhagen and York reveal challenges when studying ancient microbiomes in a recent issue of Scientific Reports.

As part of the NEXUS1492 project, this project will use ancient DNA techniques to shed new light on the demographic and health history of the Caribbean and the impact of European colonization on indigenous communities in the region.

Beautiful microscopic specimens play the leading role in the course 'Biodiversity Plant' for first-year Biology students. Normally these are put back in storage right after the course. But not this year!

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden University’s Faculty of Science with two Nigerian universities, the Center for Basic Space Science and University of Nigeria.

In the South and Southeast Asian Studies programme you will gain a strong foundation in the academic, language and critical thinking skills essential to understanding the history, culture and modern context of this dynamic and increasingly important region.

On Tuesday 14 February 2017 defended Kees van Gageldonk his doctoral thesis ‘Op zoek naar onderzoek. De totstandkoming van de onderzoekfunctie in het hoger beroepsonderwijs' at the Academy Building of Leiden University. Supervisor of the research is Prof.dr. W. Otterspeer with co-supervisor Dr. P.J.…

Got an hour to spare over the long weekend? Then listen to an episode of the new podcasts that have seen the light of day at the faculty in recent months.

Assistant professor and dual PhD candidate, Pieter Slaman writes in Binnenlands Bestuur about the fact that the German occupier lengthened the period of mandatory education in The Netherlands.