Across many decision-making tasks, people and animals systematically repeat (or alternate) their choices - even when the choices they make are intrinsically uncorrelated. This phenomenon (also known as 'sequential effect' or 'choice hysteresis') has been known for at least a century, and may be a stable…

Are you a researcher eager to share your work with a broader audience? Do you want to develop your science communication skills and learn how to engage effectively with society? Then join our Summer School Science Communication in Leiden! Jointly organized annually by the Faculties of Science and Social…

Technological advances, such as virtual reality, augmented reality and online assessment platforms are rapidly improving. These tools could potentially contribute to neuropsychological assessment that is more efficient and of higher quality.

Connecting Agriculture, Crafts, Construction, Transport, and Resilience Strategies

Restructuring and insolvency laws play a pivotal role in addressing the often conflicting interests of stakeholders of financially distressed companies. Whereas financial distress is an inherent risk of entrepreneurship in market-based economies, legal tools serve an important role to ensure an orderly…

When and how does social anxiety develop? How can it go astray in some adolescents? How can we help troubled young people to attend school regularly and return to a normal developmental pathway?

On the 8th of September Yun-An Olivia Dung successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

This project analyzes to what extent hodegetical textbooks relied on each other in warning their readers against vicious habits, how much continuity their catalogs of vice displayed, and to what extent vices that persisted throughout the 18th and 19th centuries were associated with easy-to-remember…

Read more about the application procedure and apply now!

Van Vark defended her dissertation 'Separation and immersion: the changing role of the armed forces in Northwestern liberal democracies’ on 17 October 2025. The doctoral research was supervised by Maartje van der Woude and Erwin Muller.

History is being taught at Leiden University since the days of Justus Lipsius [1547-1606]. In 1860, following the appointment of Robert Fruin as Leiden professor of Dutch History, modern historical investigation started in the Netherlands.

Research truly comes to life when it contributes meaningfully to society. By sharing our findings, advising policymakers or contributing to community projects – we can make a real impact. Scroll down and discover how Science and society can mutually benefit from each other.

See below for the full programme and abstracts of all papers.

Every year, the World Cultural Council grants special acknowledgements to five to ten young researchers or scholars of the host country who have achieved outstanding performance in the fields of science, education or arts.

Leiden University co-hosts Council of Europe expert exchange on accountability for crimes against children in Ukraine

Research at the Macromolecular Biochemistry group is comprised of the following research themes:

Every year on or around International Women’s Day on 8 March, Leiden University holds its Annie Romein-Verschoor Lecture. This year’s lecture will be given by Sylvana Simons, MP and leader and parliamentary chair of the BIJ1 party. What does International Women’s Day mean to her and which challenges…

Multiple identities of elites and ‘commoners’ viewed through the lens of crafting from the Chalcolithic to the Iron Ages in Europe and the Mediterranean

Despite an increased EU role in the preparedness, monitoring and coordination of health emergencies over the past two decades, Member States’ responses to the first wave of COVID-19 were surprisingly uncoordinated. In light of calls to improve cooperation regarding future health emergencies, this article…

Papers written on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the institute of Prehistory, Volume II.

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

In science, it is of vital importance that multiple studies corroborate the same result. Researchers therefore need to know all the details of previous experiments in order to implement the procedures as exactly as possible. However, this is becoming a major problem in neuroscience, as animal studies…

Ariadne Schmidt, Isabelle Devos and Julie de Groot provide you with refreshing insights concerning the study on urban singles in the period between 1200 and 1900.

What are the developmental pathways to social anxiety (disorder), the causal processes and maintaining factors? How do these factors interact in the development of social anxiety disorder? How can this knowledge be used to design and implement effective preventive intervention programs for youth?

Leiden University is a unique international centre for the advanced study of languages, cultures, arts, and societies worldwide, in their historical contexts from prehistory to the present.

The Austrian Studies Fund supports the Special Chair for Central European Studies, invites visiting professors from Austria and connects with Austria Centres over the world.

Almost three years after receiving her honorary doctorate, Dr Graça Machel returned to Leiden University. Over the course of two days she spoke with students, researchers, and other interested persons, about human rights – particularly those of women and children – in a world in which these are continually…

The Department of Child Law and Health Law focuses in its education on the legal position of the child in national and international law.

Material Crossovers

Despite recent advances in medicine, many devastating disorders like cancer and cardiovascular, neurodegenerative and infectious diseases still lack effective treatments. In order to address this challenge, we, as scientists from Leiden University, joined hands in the LED3 network. LED3, for Leiden…

1000 Years of World History in 100 Old Maps.

The Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) is a centre of excellence for multidisciplinary research on drug discovery and development.

How can we bridge the gap between experts and the general public?

The goal of this book is to place architectural studies, in which people’s interactions with each other and material resources are key, at the crossing of both landscape studies and material culture studies, where it belongs.

How do museum visitors interpret the authenticity of museum objects? How can we support visitors' meaningful interactions with real objects?

How do dissociative states affect the ability to suppress emotional distraction (in the context of a working memory task) in patients with Borderline Personality Disorder?

Does the public speaking anxiety that many youngsters experience originates from specific characteristics in their earlier development?

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.

LiTechAe: Percussive stone tools related to stone masonry techniques seen through experimentation and use-wear analysis.

Can positive peer feedback break the cycle of negative self-relevant cognitive processes and reduce self-reported anxiety in early adolescents?

How does stress affect different components of behavioral impulsivity and aggression in patients with Borderline Personality Disorder compared to clinical controls (patients with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and healthy controls?

How can we broaden youth participation in STEM Learning

How did people in the latter part of the Late Bronze Age organize themselves in order to be able to erect massive structures such as tholos tombs, citadels and how did they interact with these materials and circumstances while constructing? What impact did such a changing landscape have on their day-to-day…

In our lives we often have little attention or appreciation for plants, let alone the ones we commonly call weeds. This inattention for plants has been described as plant blindness. The Stoepplantjes project aspires to decrease plant blindness by changing the image of weeds and using citizen science.…

Dr. Cátia Antunes and prof. Jos Gommans both edited and contributed to this interesting book, that consists of articles that offers a new insight into the macro and micro worlds of the global Dutchman in Asia.

An overview of all special issues published by The Hague Journal of Diplomacy.

LIACS organizes different lectures and seminars like the LCN2 Seminars and SAILS Lunch Time-seminars.