Leiden has much to celebrate: first, 450 years of the Relief of Leiden and then 450 years of Leiden University. And that is no coincidence.

The research programme Descriptive and Comparative Linguistics brings together LUCL researchers who focus mainly on descriptive and comparative linguistics.

To be eligible for the MA Beyond Borders: Global and European History at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

To be eligible for North American Studies at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

From taking general introductions to developing your personal specialty; on topics ranging from the city council to the ‘new world order’; with forays into economics, history and philosophy: during Politicologie: Nationale en Internationale Politiek, a world will open up for you.

Leiden is a lively university city that’s brimming with history and boasts a student culture that’s tangible just about everywhere. Read on to discover what Leiden has to offer and get a foretaste of what you can expect.

Leiden is a lively university city that’s brimming with history and boasts a student culture that’s tangible just about everywhere. Read on to discover what Leiden has to offer and get a foretaste of what you can expect.

As a graduate of the Faculty of Humanities, there are unlimited possibilities. Do you want to know more about the sectors and jobs Humanities' graduates end up? Read their stories below!

To be eligible for Governance of Migration and Diversity at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

To be eligible for History of Inequality and Power at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

Are you keen to develop your digital skills and critical thinking? Then the Digital Humanities and Cultural Analytics minor might be something for you.

The Leiden–Birmingham Strategic Collaboration Fund provides support for colleagues from Leiden University and the University of Birmingham to undertake a research stay at one of the two partner institutions.

LUCDH are delighted to offer students of the Humanities a range of courses to develop their digital skills and critical thinking. Keen to learn more about our Digital Humanities minor 2026? All of our course descriptions will be updated in March. Check back soon!

LUCDH are delighted to offer students of the Humanities a range of courses to develop their digital skills and critical thinking. Keen to learn more about our Digital Humanities minor 2026? All of our course descriptions will be updated in March. Check back soon!

South and Southeast Asia, a region that includes India, Indonesia, and seventeen other countries, is one of the world’s most dynamic and diverse areas. Are you interested in speaking one of the region's major languages and understanding its history, culture and current affairs? Then this is the bachelor's…

On Thursday, the 19th of March 2026, students and staff had the chance to partake in the second full-day workshop organized by the Leiden Center for the Study of Ancient Religions (L*CeSAR). This edition was centered on the role of the environment in relation to religion in antiquity.

In the first year, the Linguistics programme provides a sound basis for specialisation and helps you develop your academic skills. In the second year, you will choose one of our four specialisations. While focusing on this track in your second and third year, you can also choose electives outside your…

In his VIDI project “Turning Over a New Leaf: Manuscript Innovation in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance” (2010-2015) Erik Kwakkel and his team studied how books and reading developed under influence of the Twelfth-Century Renaissance, a period in which Europe went through a variety of cultural and intellectual…

What did our distant ancestors eat and how did they prepare their food? For the length of a month, experimental archaeologist Diederik Pomstra subjects himself to a rigorous palaeodiet. He is vlogging about his experiences to reach a non-academic audience.

Ratna Saptari is since 2007 Assistant Professor at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology. She has always been involved with issues of human rights and Indonesian workers' rights. This August she retired. But she won't sit still. She continues her voluntary work and wants to…

How do local, non-institutional ideas about end-of-life care influence professional palliative care and vice versa? These questions will be answered by medical anthropologists Annemarie Samuels and Natashe Lemos Dekker in the coming years.

“A partnership based on water” summarised Gerhard van den Top the relationship between the Netherlands and the Philippines in the 4th Louwes Lecture. He emphasised the significant role of international and intercultural cooperation in managing the complex challenges brought forward by climate change.…

How do processes of coalition-formation influence patterns of decision-making in the European Union?

Sasse, van Breen, Spears & Gordijn demonstrated an anger gap in response to sexism which was larger for women than for men and found evidence that expressed anger was associated with instrumental concerns.

From ca. 1540 to 1600, thousands fled the war-stricken Southern Low Countries to the British Isles, Germany, and the Northern Low Countries. Research on this displacement crisis, central to the formation of the Netherlands and Belgium, reflects 21st-century debates on migration and language: language…

The central question of this Vici proposal is to investigate if, and how actinobacteria exploit life without a cell wall.

This book presents an introductory survey of the major themes, thinkers and texts, philosophical genres and profound insights of the Chinese philosophical tradition. Its coverage ranges from the foundational history of Chinese thought in the 6th–5th centuries BCE up to the present day.

Conference

Read all about YAL membership and the members of the Young Academy Leiden.

Research often theorizes about young adults and their social media use. John Boy wants to investigate social media platforms by talking to users rather than talking about them

In the opinion article ‘Maak praten over de dood niet tot een morele plicht’ (Don’t turn talking about death into a moral obligation) Annemarie Samuels and Liesbeth van Vliet, argue together with Marike de Meij and Sander de Hosson that it is important to have conversations about death and dying but…

Charisma K. Lepcha (PI, Sikkim University), Pradyut Guha (co-PI, Sikkim University), Rajib Sutradhar (co-PI, Christ University Bangalore) and Erik de Maaker (Leiden University) have been awarded a two-year grant of USD 18.000 to conduct research on the impact of ‘green farming’ on the sensitive mountain…

Jasmijn Rana has been awarded a Marie Skłodowska Curie Global Fellowship for her research project “The Embodiment of Racialization: Running Muslim Women and the Sense of Non-Belonging”.

Dr. Nadine Akkerman, working at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS), is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Birmingham from May 27 till July 4. She will participate in an important public discussion on Challenges for Early Modern Women's History and she'll be the keynote…

Dr. Maartje Janse (History) and Prof.dr. Gert Oostindie (History, KITLV) have been awarded a seed grant for:

Help us develop and expand the recently established Leiden Chinese Queer Collection (LCQC, 莱顿华语酷儿文献收藏) at Leiden University Libraries (UBL).

Rebekka Grossmann awarded Gerald Westheimer Career Development Fellowship for research on the effects of migration on visual codes of global solidarity

From September 2024 onwards, Leiden University’s Europa Institute will teach a new LL.M. programme on the Governance of Migration and Diversity [GMD]. Programme Chair Moritz Jesse says, ‘We need lawyers who are well-informed about the historical, sociological and political background of migration.’

On December 7th & 8th, visual artist Sophie Ernst will defend her thesis The Magic of Projection; Augmentation and Immersion in Media Art, to obtain her doctoral degree. The public defense takes place in two stages. On Wednesday 7 December 2016 at 4 PM Ernst will publicly elucidate the artistic work…

The Humanities Faculty bachelor’s degree programmes in History, and Greek and Latin language and culture were rated by students as the best. The master’s programmes in Classics and Ancient Civilisations, Dutch Studies and North American Studies also received the highest scores. These were the results…

This study seeks to analyse how job stress could be the result of performing administrative tasks

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F. van Dishoeck, Co-Promotor: G.J. Herczeg

This thesis focuses on two processes involved in fighting infections: metabolism and immune cell motility and navigation.