World history is often framed in terms of flows of people and migration: humans coming ‘out of Africa’, the spread of farmers in the Holocene, Phoenician and Greek diasporas over the ancient Mediterranean, the colonization of the world by Europeans from the 16th century onwards. Together with his Exeter…

Leiden University is a member of the Una Europa European alliance. This partnership of 11 research-intensive universities is working to shape the university of the future.

Three international research projects involving Leiden University researchers will receive funding from the Una Europa university alliance.

We are pleased to announce that on the 30th of September Dr. Andrea Waters-Rist from the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University (The Netherlands) will be launching a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) all about human osteoarchaeology!

A group of 18 Leiden students and alumni are advising the University on diversity and inclusiveness. Portraits of 11 members of the Diversity Policy Feedback Group.

Three of our researchers have been awarded a certificate for receiving enough downloads to be in the top 10% of papers in 2022

In 2019, Federico Cappadona was one of the first students to enroll in the new master’s specialisation Applied Archaeology. He recently graduated and he is happy to share his experience.

On 8, 9 & 10 October Share the LUVE takes place, the graduation show with the work of this year’s graduates of the Cultural Anthropology master Visual Ethnography. In three days 22 films, a graphic novel, artwork and photos will be presented in De Buurt, close to Leiden Central Station. If you don’t…

Scientists' computers are now full of complicated 3D models, but no standard has yet been developed for exchanging the data. A new database should change this. External PhD student Liselore Tissen is receiving a grant to contribute to this on behalf of Leiden University (and TU Delft). ‘It will be great…

Linguist Sara Petrollino has written the first detailed grammar of Hamar, a language spoken in south-west Ethiopia that has some unique characteristics. PhD defence 10 November.

Many students dread writing a thesis. Master’s student Laura Robustella's practice-based thesis shows that it is well worth the effort. She developed an art exhibition based on her master’s thesis.

Maria Vasile and Ola Gracjasz met in Donostia-San Sebastian, in the Basque Country, on the 7th of June 2022 to take part in the 1st Feminist Anthropology Conference in the Spanish state (I Antropologia Feminista Kongresua), and together present some of the outcomes of their Ph.D. researches. The conference,…

What do you do with a museum collection full of individual white Nobel laureates at a time when diversity, inclusion and teamwork reign supreme? Ad Maas, professor by special appointment, and researcher Hilbrand Wouters have been awarded an NWO Museum grant to answer that question.

A young refugee who wants to give something back to the Netherlands; a Greek girl who wants to study in her mother's home country and, of course, a lot of Dutch bachelor's students. The visitors to the Leiden Master's Day on Friday 11 March were as diverse as the range of programmes offered.

Archaeologist Corinne Hofman wins the Distinguished Lorentz Fellowship 2018/19 for research into the changing world of indigenous peoples as a result of colonialism. “The perspective of indigenous communities is still lacking in most history books.

Historical figures such as Columbus have returned to the centre of public debate. Much remains to be discovered about his legacy and current impact on our society. A new study shows the ecological footprint that the arrival of Europeans left in the Caribbean islands.

The Hortus Botanicus is celebrating its 425-year anniversary this year. It’s the oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands, but how did it come into existence and what kind of research takes place there?

Researchers from Leiden and Indonesia work together on a range of projects on topics such as disappearing languages and cultures, the role of Islam, circular economy, biodiversity and medicine. They also work on projects to improve legal education and make Dutch sources and Indonesian heritage accessible…

Seventeenth-century Danish scientist Niels Stensen made groundbreaking discoveries in the anatomy of the body and of Earth. This Leiden alumnus’s theories are still relevant, as an exhibition at the Oude UB shows.

Alex Brandsen and Wouter Verschoof-van der Vaart, PhD candidates in the Digital Archaeology research group and the Data Science Research Programme, have been awarded a 444 grant by Young Academy Leiden. They are going to use it to hold a session in Oxford on improving collaboration between researchers…

Professor Antje Wessels has received an NWO Open Competition grant to research fragmentary texts.

Scientific research, heritage management and public outreach intertwined.

Over the years, many spectacular archaeological finds have been washed ashore on the Dutch coast. Among these a large assemblage of barbed points made of bone and antler from the Mesolithic (11,000-8000 BC). The species used by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to manufacture their barbed points remained…

Explore the One Among Zeroes |0100| project and its role in shaping the future of the digital economy, human-environment dynamics, and urban heritage in Indonesia's cities.

Joanita Vroom's term as Head of the Department for World Archaeology runs out on March 1, 2023. Quentin Bourgeois will succeed her. In this interview, we look both back on the turbulent last three years and ahead at what the future has in store for the department. ‘I am very proud of the World Archaeology…

On May 15th, from 15.15 to 17.00 in the Vossiusroom, Leiden University Libraries will host a program on web-archiving and digital archives of Chinese communities in the Netherlands and Indonesia.

MIDDELBURG/GENEVA – The president of the United Nations Human Rights Council has invited the Zeeland Archives from the Netherlands, to Geneva on March 20th in order to present its project about the historical slave voyage aboard The Unity (1761-1763).

The city of Leiden has a unique combination of knowledge institutions. To ensure this knowledge flourishes and the city gains the maximum benefit from it, the Leiden City of Knowledge partnership was launched five years ago. A new partnership agreement will be signed on 11 November.

With an ERC grant, anthropologist Jasmijn Rana will explore how outdoor groups address the lack of diversity and how ethno-racial inequalities are experienced and resisted in Europe's outdoor spaces.

The Van Bergen Fund aims to promote contacts between Dutch and international students in order to achieve a better understanding of each other's cultures. At the Symposium for Diversity and Inclusion the two winners of the Van Bergen Award 2015 were announced.

New sampling and analytical strategies give archaeologists a better understanding of the nutrition and survival of ancient populations. Publication in PLOS One.

More than 200 students completed their Bachelor’s degrees in combination with a three-year Honours programme last year. On 15 November, this resulted in a record number of certificates since the start of the Honours College 9 years ago. While listening to personal speeches, the students received their…

Mariska Jung, Jasmijn Rana and Looi van Kessel receive a €10,000 KIEM grant for

The exhibition Unity and Diversity in the Amerindian Caribbean: The El Cabo San Rafael Archaeological Site has been officially opened by Prof. dr. Corinne Hofman on Tuesday evening in Santo Domingo.

The origins of Surinamese rice, a digital twin of the Earth and a large big-data project in the Chilean sky: three Leiden scientists receive an ENW-KLEIN grant for innovative, fundamental research.

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…

Dr Sarah Schrader, an expert in the study of human remains, received a VIDI grant for a research project on health and inequality. In present day people with a high socio-economic status encounter fewer health risks than those in lower socio-economic strati. ‘Now we will look at this process in the…

Dr Claire Achmad has taken up the role of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Chief Children’s Commissioner from 1 November 2023, for a term of five years.

CML Researcher Merlijn van Weerd wins Parker / Gentry Award 2015 for Conservation Biology at Field Museum Chicago in recognition of his commitment to biodiversity conservation in the Philippines

In Bronze Age Europe many bronze objects such as axes, swords and jewels were deliberately left at specific spots in the landscape. PhD research by Leiden archaeologist Marieke Visser shows that these practices were expressions of people’s relationship with the world around them. ‘It was a completely…

Leiden University will deepen its cooperation with knowledge institutions in Africa. During a trip to Ghana, a delegation spoke with several African knowledge institutions about intensifying their collaboration.

Wiebe Ruijtenberg (Law/VVI), Nadia Sonneveld (Law/VVI), Paul van Trigt (Institute for History) and Jasmijn Rana (CADS) have received a KIEM grant of € 10.000 for their project ‘Making up Migrants / Disabled: The pasts, presents, and futures of human classifying’. The grant will be utilised to organize…

During the ceremony of the Opening of the Academic Year, University Lecturer Arjan Louwen has won Leiden University's prestigious LUS Teaching Award. The prize, awarded annually by the Leiden University Student Platform (LUS), honours lecturers who excel in their teaching. For Louwen, the nomination…

Archaeologists from Leiden University and the municipality of Apeldoorn have excavated two prehistoric ancestral mounds dating from 300 years BC at the 'Echoput' royal estate. The findings were presented to Her Majesty Queen Beatrix on Friday 2 November.

Our master’s alumna Marie Kolbenstetter was recently awarded a NWO subsidy for a PhD in the Humanities. With this funding she will be able to continue her master’s thesis research on the archaeology of Honduras at our Faculty. ‘I’m really happy to have my own project. This has been two years in the…

The Netherlands Institute in Morocco is open to students from all Dutch universities. Two students explain why they are spending a semester studying in Rabat.

Ever since its foundation, Leiden University has turned its gaze outwards to other cultures, languages and forms of academic practice. It is only natural, therefore, that we as a university have four institutes abroad: the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV-KNAW)…

How do you go about the sustainable restoration of a nineteenth-century ship without affecting its historical worth? Leiden University students from the master’s programme in Industrial Ecology spent six months working on this question. We spoke to Hidde Boom (25) and Tycho Jongenelen (25), two of the…

Are you looking for some listening material for the upcoming long weekend? Staff members and alumni of the Faculty of Humanities have been creating various podcasts over the last few months. A selection is shown here:

Manuscripts that look like a comic book, that's how you could describe the manuscripts of the Dongba people from China. The manuscripts are one of the last examples of a so-called pictographic script that can only be interpreted by Dongba priests, shamans, who have knowledge of the ancient Dongba cu…