Leiden University’s Political Science and International Studies programmes continue to enjoy a solid academic reputation. In the 2016 QS World University Rankings, Leiden is in the top 25 of the most esteemed institutes worldwide. Within the Netherlands, Leiden has retained the first position.

Henk Versnel's work on ancient religion has been seminal. For his 80th birthday, a group of scholars assembled to celebrate and analyze his oeuvre.

No sitting in lecture halls, no coffee at the JuCa: Leiden Law School students will have to follow lectures and do exams from home for the time being. A huge transition.

Alumna Fleur van Elk graduated cum laude for the research master's program Cognitive Neuroscience and started her PhD trajectory at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. For Humans of Psychology, Fleur talks about studying, working and has advice for current psychology students.

On Wednesday, 22 September, at 17.00, this interdisciplinary research group kicks off a series of online seminars.

Students, staff and alumni of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences joint forces to interact, debate, pitch, and speed date together at the Connecting Social Sciences science festival on Friday 22 November, 2019. After the opening speeches and panel discussion on science and societal impact,…

Read all about YAL membership and the members of the Young Academy Leiden.

Fleur Visser was awarded a Veni grant by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). She is one of seventeen promising young Leiden scientists, who get the opportunity to develop their own ideas over a period of three years. Veni-funding is part of NWO's Talent Scheme, concerning…

On 1 November 2018, Marieke Bloembergen was appointed Professor of Archival and Postcolonial Studies at the Institute for History.

The Netherlands-Flemish Institute in Cairo (NVIC) is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Thousands of students and researchers from eight partner universities in the Netherlands and Flanders have been able to gain valuable experience in Egypt through the institute. Good reason for a celebrat…

The Modern Migration Policy Act aims to ensure that the admission of regular migrants is effective and manageable.

In early January, the Master of Laws: Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights released its January Newsletter to its friends and partner networks.

Like any language, the natural sign languages (henceforth: SLs) of deaf communities differ from each other in their grammars and lexicons. A growing number of studies indicates that SLs make use of the gestures of hearing speakers to build linguistic structure. This implies that variation and similarities…

The project Going Dutch investigates why the link between being or becoming Dutch, and knowledge of Standard Dutch is so often taken for granted in public discourse, by diving into its historical roots.

The research in the framework of the Jean Monnet Chair is focused on the following points.

eLaw is a research institute of interdisciplinary scholars who explore issues at the intersection of law, technology and society.

In the specialisation Clinical Neuropsychology, part of the Master in Psychology, you will focus on fostering clinical and scientific skills based on a solid theoretical background as well as practical training in neuropsychology and (clinical) neuropsychological research.

The LUCDH foster the development of new digital research by awarding a number of Small Grants each year. COIn Grants support Infrastructure development. We congratulate our four successful awardees for 2026.

In September 2023, we started transforming a under-utilised outdoor space into a greener and more biodiverse garden in which all students and staff of the Schouwburgstraat can relax and enjoy.

In the specialisation Child and Adolescent Psychology , part of the Master in Psychology, you develop practical skills in assessing and managing developmental psychopathology.

How can we make studying easier for students with a functional disability? This will be the key question during a public conference on 20 April. Romke Biagioni (Fenestra) explains why there is such a need for this conference. Are you going to be there?

The coal-power energy sector is using enormous amounts of fresh water which is projected to negatively affect lives and the ecological balance of the surrounding region. This is the conclusion of the new report The Unquenchable Thirst of Energy Production, published by Greenpeace Bulgaria and Leiden…

Using the Dutch-led Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope, astronomers have discovered unusual radio waves coming from the nearby red dwarf star GJ1151. The radio waves bear the tell-tale signature of aurorae caused by an interaction between a star and its planet. The radio emission from a star-planet…

A study carried out at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) on the wellbeing of PhD candidates at Leiden University has shown that a number of them experience so much stress that they can develop mental health problems. The supervision of PhD candidates is a continuing focus of attention…

For thousands of years, the prehistoric communities of the Low Countries followed their own path, compared with the rest of Europe. An international research team has now published these findings in Nature.

Why do some people with adverse childhood experiences develop mental health conditions whereas others do not? A Leiden research project is looking for volunteers aged between 18 and 24 to help us understand more about human resilience.

It sounds futuristic, but it is possible: the creation of miniature organs of patients in order to study them and see how diseases develop and can be treated. This is what researchers from the LUMC, Twente University (UT), UMCG, TU Delft and the Hubrecht Institute hope to achieve in the next ten years…

For centuries, astronomers have studied the universe by collecting light signals. Since 2015, the confirmation of an important prediction of Einstein allows us to explore the universe in a new way: through gravitational wave radiation. Astronomy PhD candidate Valeriya Korol proposes to use these gravitational…

The P.J. Cosijn Research Fellowship is an initiative to give promising Research MA students of Leiden University with an interest in Anglo-Saxon Studies the opportunity to conduct research on Old English language and literature. The Cosijn Fellowships are part of the ERC-funded project ‘Early Medieval…

The European Commission has selected a consortium of major European launcher and satellite manufacturers, operators and service providers, as well as policy and legal research centres and institutes to study and provide guidelines and recommendations on Space Traffic Management (STM). The IIASL of Leiden…

How have British cities changed in the years since the Second World War? And what drove this transformation? This innovative new history traces the development of the post-war British city, from the 1940s era of reconstruction, through the rise and fall of modernist urban renewal, up to the present-day…

Professor Henk Schulte Nordholt was made a Knight of the Order of the Netherlands Lion on Friday 6 September 2019 for his services to the study of Indonesia. Mayor of Leiden, Henri Lenferink, presented him with his medal. This was at the end of a valedictory symposium for and a valedictory speech by…

What is the effectiveness of two school-based skills-training programs in promoting mental health?

Now available on YouTube!

In a letter initiated by Wil Roebroeks, among others, serious concerns were raised about three research papers claiming evidence for one of the earliest human occupations of Europe.

On early October, the Master of Laws: Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights released its October Newsletter to its friends and partner networks.

Generations of Leiden students and academics have done archaeological research into the early medieval history of Oegstgeest. This makes this old settlement one of the best-documented sites from that era. In a new book, Leiden researchers take stock.

Settlement burials in the pagus Texandrië and the transformation of Merovingian society c. 700 AD (Southern Netherlands)

In this study I explore literary structures of identity-formation in the works of assimilated/acculturated Jewish writers: Kafka’s novella “The Metamorphosis” (“Die Verwandlung”, 1912) and David Vogel’s Hebrew novel Married Life. 1929).

The Historia Naturalis Brasiliae Reconsidered

For early modern Europeans, the past was a measure of most things, good and bad. For that reason it was also hotly contested, manipulated, and far too important to be left to historians alone.

This book focuses on transnationalism as a key concept to evaluate how Europe responds to cross-border security challenges.

How do opinions form and change in large groups of people? That's not just a sociological question, it's a mathematical one. PhD candidate Federico Capannoli studied opinion dynamics. He defended his thesis on November 19.

Hekmat Dirbas defended his thesis on 14 February 2017