Using enslaved people as servants, becoming an administrator in the Dutch West India Company or making uniforms for the colonial army. Many people from Leiden played a role in colonialism and slavery. Historians are conducting preliminary research and finding striking examples.

Up above the world so high a giant star twinkles. Could an 83-year-old astronomer unravel the mystery of this megastar? ‘At times I thought: that’s it! I give up! It’s beyond me.’

The SRON space research institute currently located in Utrecht will be relocating to South Holland. The institute, which constructs highly advanced technological instruments for astronomy research and for research on exoplanets, will relocate to new premises adjacent to Leiden University's Science Campus.…

For more than 1500 years, Confucianism has played a major role in shaping Japan's history - from the formation of the first Japanese states during the first millennium AD, to Japan's modernization in the nineteenth century, to World War II and its still unresolved legacies across East Asia today.

‘Broad Implications of Climate Change in East Africa in terms of Human and Animal Futures’

Hosted at the Netherlands Institute in Morocco (NIMAR) in Rabat on 26 and 27 October, 20 junior and senior empirical researchers who all work on migration in Morocco came together to discuss two important topics that are frequently neglected in migration scholarship. The researchers were from different…

On Saturday October 16, the special exhibition ‘Shared Sky: Canvases of the Universe’ opens in the Old Observatory in Leiden. The exhibit takes a cultural look at the starry sky by Aboriginal Australian and South African artists, and features colorful artwork that explores how these Indigenous cultures…

On May 25th, Prof. Damian Pargas will hold his inaugural lecture

In November 2019 visual artist and PhDArts candidate Riccardo Giacconi obtained the doctoral degree with the research project The Variational Mode. This summer Giacconi has been awarded a LUF grant for the research project The ‘Option’ aftermath in South Tyrol. The research will be conducted at the…

Globalisation means becoming globalised, a process in which material culture plays a crucial role. This is what Miguel John Versluys, the new Professor of Classical and Mediterranean Archaeology, teaches. He bases his teaching on research into the origin and growth of the Roman Empire from the 3rd…

On 8 April, Michael Sampson and Shiming Yang, from the new GTGC Seed Grant project 'Transformations in Global Climate Finance' presented on their research set-up and engaged in a discussion with the audience.

Ancois de Villiers, PhD candidate at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology, received the PeerJ Award for Best Student Presentation at the International Mediterranean Ecosystems Conference.

With the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang being over, it can undoubtedly be said that a lot transpired between the both Koreas: the visit of Kim Jong-un's sister to South Korea, the $2.64 million budget from South Korea for members of the North Korean Olympic delegation, and the first time the North…

The KNMI issues weather warnings in various codes depending on the weather's risk to people's safety. Below, you can read what the university and faculty follow for these codes.

The enlargement of the EU to include ten East and Central European countries went smoothly. But further expansion is meeting resistance and Poland and Hungary are now abandoning a number of democratic principles. What are the reasons? Antoaneta Dimitrova, Professor of Comparative Governance, explains…

For long, the government showed little empathy for military veterans with physical or psychological scars. This is what PhD research by Theo van den Doel has revealed. The Ministry of Defence looked at each case through a legal lens. Veteran support has improved enormously since, but the policy does…

What makes South Korean films successful? In the first part of the video series 'The World of the Korean Wave', University Lecturer Peter Verstraten discusses the recent success of South Korean cinema.

Lecture, LAC Asia Academy

Lecture, LAC Asia Academy

Now that war is once again raging in Europe, the question of when you need to stand up against injustice has become more relevant than ever. In his Cleveringa lecture on 24 November historian Gert Oostindie will discuss why colonial domination was not regarded as an issue in Leiden for a long time.

The ERC has awarded a Starting Grant to five promising researchers from Leiden. Two are from the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, one is from the Faculty of Humanities/Governance and Global Affairs, one from the LUMC and one from the Faculty of Science.

Professor Nira Wickramasinghe will research forgotten lineages with an NWO Open Competition grant, in particular the afterlife of Dutch slavery in the Indian Ocean World.

'We must set out an agenda, in partnership, to manufacture our own means. This will stimulate science, small businesses, jobs and society in Africa and beyond.' With these words Naledi Pandor opened the symposium 'Science Diplomacy and International Development', which was held in her honour on 27 Februari…

The Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO) annually awards the best theses on the Ancient Near East. The 2018 award went to archaeology student Giacomo Fontana for his MA thesis on automatic detection and extraction of Omani burial monuments in satellite images.

Manon van der Heijden and Leo Lucassen, and Maarten Mous will receive NWO Open Competition funding. This funding amounts to a maximum of 750,000 euros and is intended to carry out research into a subject of their your own choice, without thematic preconditions.

How do you compare the living environment of Dutch dairy cows with that of Masai cattle in East Africa? And how can we reverse biodiversity loss? These questions are central to CurveBend, an international research consortium in which ecologist Michiel Veldhuis plays a key role.

Six students of archaeology, history and art history are to follow the Silk Route in Central Asia, looking for evidence from ancient history for the enormous cultural exchange brought about by this trade route. They are conducting their research for the exhibition on the Silk Route that opened in the…

An evening program in the University Library and Middle Eastern Library in Leiden for everyone who has something to do with the Middle East; from Tajikistan to the Mahreb and from Istanbul to Sanaa. View the oldest books and clay tablets from the collection and listen to the most fascinating stories…

In the 13th century BC, Mycenaean Greece was the stage for ambitious monumental building programmes. How were people and means deployed, and with what socio-economic influence? Leiden Archaeologist dr. Ann Brysbaert investigates the matter with an ERC Consolidator Grant.

In the course of 2020 the Faculty of Archaeology was bolstered by some new staff members. Due to the coronavirus situation, sadly, this went for a large part unnoticed. In a series of interviews we are catching up, giving the floor to our new colleagues. We kick off with Dr Tuna Kalayci, who joined…

In ancient times, the desert in the Udhruh region in Jordan was transformed into a green oasis. An intricate network of underground water channels was part of an ancient system of water management, storing water and preventing loss through evaporation. Archaeologist Mark Driessen found a new way to…