On the eve of World War II, Leiden was home to the largest Indonesian student community in the Netherlands. Many of these students joined the resistance against the German occupation, and later some fought for Indonesia’s independence.

Two open letters are currently circulating among civil servants in the Netherlands calling for the Dutch government to take a different stance towards Israel. Wim Voermans, Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law in Leiden, says in a national radio broadcast that this is an unusual and unique…

Pop-up art studio

At the beginning of July the prestigious library of Ton Koopman, acquired earlier this year, arrived at the Orpheus Instituut Koetshuis. Thousands of books were moved from Ton Koopman's house near Amsterdam to Ghent by a specialised firm.

Last September Henk Borgdorff participated in the art and research funding expert meeting of funding agencies initiated by the Society for Artistic Research (SAR).

In a recent article published on PLOS, Drs. Briana Pobiner and Ryan McRae of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History discuss the top 13 discoveries in human evolution in 2023.

Joanita Vroom, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Archaeology, has received a DANS Klein DataProject (KDP) bursary for her project entitled ‘Data Atlas of Byzantine and Ottoman material culture: archiving Medieval and Post-Medieval archaeological fieldwork data from the Eastern Mediterranean (600…

On 19 December 2024, Dr Constanta Rosca’s monograph, ‘Digital Arms for Digital Consumer Harms: Mapping Legal and Technical Solutions for Dark Patterns in EU Consumer Law’, was published as an open access book by the institutional, library-led publisher of Maastricht University, Maastricht University…

Theoretical physicist and cosmologist Alexey Boiarskyi has been appointed full professor per 1 October.

Monika Baár received a two-month residential fellowship by the Brocher Foundation, an organization located in Hermance (near Geneva) which supports research in the medical humanities.

After years of being housed in the Matthias de Vrieshof 4 building alongside the Witte Singel, the Institute for Philosphy will move to the Reuvensplaats 3-4 in August.

'When taking into account all finds in the Islamic world of this enigmatic vessel, it would perhaps be wise not to restrict this container to merely one function.'

Prof. Dr. Joris F. Borghouts (1939-2018) was Full Professor of Egyptology at Leiden University and a specialist in ancient Egyptian grammar and magic.

The ‘Wetenschapscongres for vwo’ gets an Anglophone edition: 'Leiden University’s Academic Challenge’.

With the final version of his research report entitled NEW INPUTS, Richard Barrett concludes the documentation of research carried out for the Lectorate “Music, Society and Education” at the Royal Conservatoire.

The fall of the IS caliphate is coming closer. At the same time, the AIVD warned for an increase in the return of especially the hardened warriors. How should Europe handle this? The shrinking of freedoms will only feed terrorist organizations like IS.

The Leiden Center for the Study of Ancient Arabia (LeiCenSAA) announces a new open access, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the epigraphy of Arabia and its cultural and linguistic context: Arabian Epigraphic Notes

Ukrainian President Zelensky has indicated on several occasions that he wants to be part of the European Union. According to Caroline van der Plas, Dutch MP for the BoerBurgerBeweging party, this is not possible. Any country that wants to join the EU must go through the standard procedure. No except…

Attachés from the Innovation Attaché Network (IAN) visited Leiden University to meet with researchers working on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and to become more familiar with what Leiden, Leiden University and the LUMC have to offer to possible partners abroad.

As of 1 January 2020 the Institute of Immigration Law will become part of the Europa Institute of Leiden University.

Joanita Vroom has been appointed as president of the Society ‘Byzantine Studies Netherlands / Byzantijnse Studies Nederland’, the Dutch branch of the ‘International Association of Byzantine Studies / Association Internationale des Études Byzantines’ (AIEB).

The Tides of History is a history podcast that takes listeners into the past while trying to identify how it echoes today. The current season centers around the Iron Age and the new episode features an interview with our own Bleda Düring.

Children will be able to return to school in the near future, but students from Leiden University are not that fortunate. For the rest of this academic year, they will attend their courses online. To support one another in this period of isolation, honours students have shared their tips and ideas in…

Climate change is going to have more and more influence on our daily lives in the near future. For example, tackling it is going to have significant consequences for many people in our society.

On 17 October 2019, the Netherlands’ Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management organised a first stakeholders meeting on microfibers from textile in the LEF Future Center. The meeting was prompted by a report of the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) in April of this…

Leiden University recently named a new building for Egyptologist Herta Mohr. But who was she?

New finds demonstrate that Neandertals were the first in Europe to make standardised and specialised bone tools – which are still in use today. These firndings are reported by Leiden reseachers together with an international team of archaeologists in the PNAS journal (Proceedings National Academy of…

At the Hague University of Applied Sciences, a stakeholder meeting took place on 4 April in the context of peace and justice in a digital world. The meeting was an initiative of Leiden University (LCDS, eLaw) and the Hague University of Applied Sciences, to explore joint curriculum development in the…

Buried beneath a Suffolk forest, archaeologists have uncovered the earliest known human-made fire. A fire that was sparked 400,000 years ago. This stunning UK discovery may rewrite our evolutionary story, potentially pushing fire-making back by more than 350,000 years.

Private businesses will probably soon refuse access to non-vaccinated persons in the near future. But this is more difficult when it comes to public amenities. Aart Hendriks, Professor of Health Law at Leiden Law School, contributed to an article in Dutch newspaper NRC saying that he anticipates that…

The board of the Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO) has agreed on June 27 on a plan for closer collaboration with Leiden University and the National Museum of Antiquities (RMO). The plan includes the launch of a NINO research institute with an annual budget of approximately 300.000 euro.

Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) and the Leiden University Institute for History (LUIH) are looking for a PhD in the History and Culture of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity.

The archaeology of food is in all sorts of ways ‘hot’. To illustrate this, recently the book Medieval MasterChef was published, focusing on cuisine and foodways in the Mediterranean and north-western Europe during Medieval and Post-Medieval times.

International conference “Bodies of Knowledge: Arabic Language, Egyptian Labor, and Communities of Practice in the History of Archaeology & Egyptology” 19-21 November 2024

The faculty of Humanities scores well in the anual QS World Universities Ranking By Subject list. This year we have placed sixth in the category Classics and Ancient History.

Ancient clay tablets, between 2,500 and 4,000 years old, bearing cuneiform script have been scanned using a micro-CT-scanner at Delft University of Technology. The tablets are owned by the Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO).

On Tuesday, December 9 2025, Prof. Koen Ottenheyn delivered the last Austria Centre lunch talk of 2025. Prof. Ottenheyn serves as a professor of architectural history at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, and is a member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences and the Academic Curatorium which advises…

Op dinsdag 4 februari 2020 kreeg universitair docent kinderrechten Stephanie Rap de KNAW Early Career Award 2019 uitgereikt. Ze kreeg de prijs voor haar onderzoek naar de betekenis van internationale kinderrechten.

Luc Verheij, Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law (Kircheiner chair) at Leiden Law School has been appointed as a member of the 'Raad van State', the Dutch Council of State. Verheij was already a State Councillor at the Advisory Division since 2011. He will continue to fulfill this role…

Nico Schrijver professor emeritus in Public Law and State councillor at the Council of State has been appointed by the European Union and the United Kingdom as a member of the Arbitration Panel which is authorised to settle disputes on the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement.

Lecture

Femke is a third-year student of Dutch Language and Culture. She was a board member for a year, did an internship in times of COVID-19, and above all has a passion for her mother tongue.

PhD defence

Inaugural lecture

As a supervisor, you play a vital role in guiding and supporting your PhD candidate throughout their academic journey. Here are some important responsibilities and steps you need to consider.

The project’s main aim was to build a reconstruction of a prehistoric house plan, without using any metal tools. How effective are tools made of stone, flint, bone, antler and wood? What are the constraints imposed by the various building materials? How much labour do we need and how much knowledge…

Urbanisation is steadily increasing with estimates expecting that 68% of the global population will live in cities by 2050. To accommodate the rural to urban transition, large quantities of land are transformed from natural to urban lands.