You can ask virtual assistant Siri about the weather, but you can’t have a real conversation with it yet. You can’t refer to anything that’s been said before, or ask the system why it says what it says. Stephan Raaijmakers, Professor by Special Appointment from TNO, hopes to change this.

This one-year master's programme explores the political and cultural evolution of the world from a long-term, and broad comparative perspective. This creates a better understanding of the entangled nature of today's society.

History of Inequality and Power provides you with an in-depth understanding of the past and present that will contribute to solving current societal problems.

The one-year Master's specialisation in Ancient History: Empires, Societies and Cultures offers an attractive mix of theoretical knowledge and practical experience.

Poetry, video editing, musical art: the first installment of the 48 Hour Project, in which students created a piece of art in only two days, has resulted in a wide variety of creativity. For participants, it was a glimmer of light in a rather dark year of lockdowns: “I felt like I was physically there with…

An overview of the media appearances of scientists working with the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs about terrorist attacks in Europe, their consequences, and more.

How would you convert Egyptian hieroglyphs into Latin script? And what is actually the correct translation of dishes on a Vietnamese menu? On Saturday 28 January, high school students from all over the Netherlands will come to Leiden to ponder a series of language-related puzzles. Their goal? To win…

On Saturday 16 January 2016, the Faculty of Archaeology opened its doors to welcome over 100 archaeology and living archaeology enthusiasts from all over the Netherlands. They were participating in a full-day symposium organised by Céline den Engelsman and Casper van Dijk, BA3-students from the archaeology…

Afgelopen zondagavond, 22 augustus, is na een kort ziekbed onze zeer gewaardeerde collega professor Wim Jiskoot, Hoogleraar Technologie van toediening van medicijnen, overleden. Wim werd twee weken geleden onverwachts geconfronteerd met het feit dat hij een vergevorderd stadium van kanker had, waarvoor…

How did science relate to politics and colonialism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? Assistant Professor Lauren Lauret has been awarded an NWO XS grant to map the colonial and political activities of nineteenth-century scientists.

Autism research is at times saturated with implicit values, norms and possible prejudices. Researchers should be more aware of this, says development psychologist Carolien Rieffe. She advocates Critical Design: a self-critical view as a scientific method.

Biologist, artist, activist and Leiden alumnus Merijn Tinga supped the river Rijn in 28 days, to gain attention for plastic waste. His journey of more than 1000 kilometers has been captured in the documentary ‘From Source to Sea’, that can be seen on 4 June at 20:50 on National Geographic Channel.

In mei 2025 verscheen 'De beloning van curatoren bij lege boedels', een onderzoek van Universiteit Leiden en SEO Economisch Onderzoek naar de knelpunten in curatorenfinanciering bij lege boedels.

In collaboration with the collective Tierra de Nadie, BOCA invites you to an open mic session on May 27th at Scheltema (Leiden) starting from 18.30. This collaboration is translingual. So: lxs invitamos al open mic en español, wij nodigen jullie uit in het Nederlands, and we invite you in English! While…

Following the murder of two Dutch people - of which Iran is suspected - Trouw investigates how usual these practices are. Paul Abels, Professor of Intelligence Studies and Ben de Jong, Researcher, both working at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA), will address the subject.

This year, the National Clean-up Day, in an adapted form, will take place. Join us and take a clean-up walk on Saturday, March 20.⠀

The Leiden Papyrological Institute is the only papyrological institute in the Netherlands, and one of the few institutes in the world where study of Greek and Demotic Egyptian is combined. This is reflected in both teaching and research. Members of the Institute are active in publishing texts from various…

Amerindian intra- and inter-insular relationships and social organization in the pre-colonial Windward Islands.

To safeguard the quality of research within Leiden University, a committee of external experts evaluates the University’s institutes once every six years according to the Standard Evaluation Protocol, which is drawn up by the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU), the Royal Netherlands…

We give you 10 reasons why you should choose for Leiden University and should study the advanced master programme Law and Digital Technologies.

In a lot of research on education, general didactic principles are applied to a particular area of study. ‘But every field of study also has its own ways of thinking’, argues professor Fred Janssen. ‘If you can identify those ways of thinking, then you have a lot of indicators for how you can best organise…

In this dissertation (titled: Exploring the Synergies between Transfer in Reinforcement Learning and Procedural Content Generation) we explore how the two research fields named in the title, namely Transfer in Reinforcement Learning (TRL) and Procedural Content Generation (PCG) can synergize togethe…

As we are working very hard to make our University more green, it is of upmost importance that you join us in our battle and start increasing the local biodiversity from your own house! Every bit will help, it is beneficial for you own mental health and most importantly it is fun! We have created this…

Law and Digital Technologies (L.L.M.) examines the legislation and governance regarding internet, computers, persuasive technologies and ambient intelligence.

Investigations conducted by several Dutch child protection bodies within family situations are inadequate. Due to lack of knowledge, time and money, these investigations are not carried out properly, with major consequences for the families involved.

This research note argues that the “lone wolf” typology should be fundamentally reconsidered.

Male scientists owe their position to their brilliance, women to their hard work. Or do they? The Equalista app helps staff and students at the Faculty of Humanities to become aware of gender equality.

Was the progressive colonial civil servant the precursor of the postcolonial development-aid worker?

A research data infrastructure in computational social science

In the hunt for a vaccine against cervical cancer, fundamental knowledge about the immune system and organic chemistry have been brought together and have already resulted in a vaccine that is now being tested in clinical trials. Scientists are now working hard on an improved variant.

Gerrie Lodder has published an article in the Dutch legal periodical Nederlands Juristenblad on the exploitation of labour migrants from the perspective of human rights.

Through our educational activities at Leiden University, the Public Management and Organisation section seeks to share scientific insights and develop actionable competences that enable individuals and collectives working in public organisations to understand and address today’s societal problems.

On June 9-10 2016 Dr. E. Devroe of the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) was invited as a key-note speaker on ‘Intelligence Led policing and community oriented policing’ at the annual meeting of the ‘Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’ (OSCE), Transnational Threats Department,…

In the specialisation Economic and Consumer Psychology, part of the Master in Psychology, you will study the psychological mechanisms that underlie our decisions and choices concerning consumption and other economic behaviours.

The programme works to shed light on transnational, international and comparative aspects of law. We will focus on theory and the practical application.

Supervisor: Maarten Doornbos

This dissertation focuses on a new field of artistic research in which a visual artist takes on the role of researcher. The main research question is whether performance art integrated in an ecumenical service, combined with artistic directions from the artist, can enhance the religious experience of…

How did students experience Designing Your Life education? Read their stories below!

How can the emergence of primary justice systems be facilitated and furthered?

Are you looking for a research project?

Political Islam is not new to the Middle East, but the appearance of ISIS has stretched the phenomenon to the extreme.

April 2021 saw the publication of the book ‘Cross-Border Protocols in Insolvencies of Multinational Enterprise Groups’. This book was published by Edward Elgar Publishing. It is written by Ilya Kokorin and Bob Wessels. The book serves as a comprehensive introduction to insolvency protocols and focuses…

This dissertation examines whether a cochlear implant provides congenitally deaf born children with sufficient auditory input to acquire low salient and syntactically and semantically complex functional items such as personal pronouns compared to their hearing peers.

The research presented in this thesis concerns one of the most important questions in software engineering of our time: how can we make sure that software is free from memory safety bugs?