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?

FluidKnowledge will investigate the past, present and future of evaluating ocean science. Regarding the past, it will ask how research priorities in ocean science evolved until now. Which lines of inquiry became hot topics, and which died out? Who became global players, who ended up in the periphery?…

Today’s socio-economic challenges aren’t new. In the centuries after the retreat of the Roman state people with different backgrounds and with different ways of life somehow managed to build and maintain a complex economic system in northern Gaul that would produce the ruling dynasties of Europe. By…

Below you will find an overview of the publications of The Leiden Advocacy Project on Plastic.

We investigate water quality and want to understand the effects of human interference on aquatic biodiversity.

On this page, you will find the recordings of the Tuesday Talks since April 2025. Recordings of the precursor to the Tuesday Talks, This Week’s Discoveries, are also available here.

Do you want to go for a full academic programme? In that case, the next step after obtaining your bachelor’s is a master’s degree (MSc or MA) at a Dutch or international university. You will find that the Science for Sustainable Societies bachelor’s programme qualifies you for many master’s programm…

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

Lecture, Blue History Network Graduate Forum

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

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.'

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…

Language can be a time machine: we can learn from ancient texts how our ancestors interacted with the world around them. But can language also teach us something about people whose language has been lost? PhD candidate Anthony Jakob investigated whether the languages of prehistoric populations left…

Historian Dario Fazzi is the new professor by special appointment at the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies (RIAS), a strategic partner of the Faculty of Humanities. He starts on 1 September and will combine his new position with his current teaching duties at the Institute for History.

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…

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.

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

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 two Spanish newspapers. Three newspaper published interviews with Storm.

Several Spanish media paid attention to associate professor Eric Storm’s new book Nationalism.

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

Several Spanish news outlets have published interviews with Associate Professor Eric Storm about his new book Nationalism.

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

Following the Spanish translation of his book Nationalism, associate professor Eric Storm was interviewed by El Periódico and Crónica Global. Several other media outlets have also published reviews of his book.

Following to the Romanian translation of his book Nationalism, associate professor Eric Storm was interviewed by several Romanian news outlets. Several other media published reviews of his book.

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

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.

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

On 1 March, Lennart Schada von Borzyskowski will start on a tenure track position at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL). With a focus on the natural and synthetic biochemistry of environmental bacteria, he wants to apply their features to health and sustainability issues.

On the basis of the characteristic aspects of a picture, certain computers can tell us what the picture is showing. They can learn this in the same way that young children are able to learn to recognize images. Further improving these techniques opens the way to a whole range of new applications. Biology…

How do you ensure that research is performed, evaluated and managed in a responsible way? This question is also of the utmost important to the University itself. The Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) studies scientific research and its relationship with technology, innovation and soci…

Microbes influence and respond to other organisms. This theme explores the dynamic relationships within plant and animal microbiomes, and the immune responses that govern host defense. Using model systems such as zebrafish, insects, and plants, we investigate fundamental processes and engineer microbes…

From 15 to 20 November 2015 twelve members of the Winter-semester intake of theInternational Humanitarian Law Clinic of the Kalshoven-Gieskes Forum attended and actively participated in an international exchange conference on International Humanitarian Law at Radzyner Law School, IDC in Herzliya, Is…

Leiden’s Institute for History has an exceptionally strong expertise in premodern European history in its global context, with specialists whose interests cover virtually the whole continent. We have a strong track record in leading larger research teams and work together with colleagues across Europe…

The aim of this EU+ project is to study and develop instructional tools for inclusive pedagogies in higher education.

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.

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

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.

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.

With a success rate of approximately one in ten, receiving an ERC Starting Grant is a notable achievement. Recently, the European Commission announced that Sarah de Rijcke successfully applied for the project FluidKnowledge.

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…

In 2022, Leiden will be the European Capital of Science. An enthusiastic team from our Faculty is already busy planning the activities. Today we speak with Marin Visscher. As a project coordinator, he seeks the connection between university and society.

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.…

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.