Synchronised heart rates and skin conductance tell us that people are attracted to each other. This explains why we feel a romantic ‘click’ with some people and not with others. This is the result of research by psychologist Eliska Prochazkova from the Leiden Institute for Brain and Recognition, which…

An international partnership of brain researchers from 35 research centres - from the US to China - including the Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition (LIBC), has collected resting-state functional MRI data from more than 1400 healthy volunteers and put the information online so that it is available…

Put two single people in one place and what do you get? Science! Psychologists at Leiden University will be conducting research on human attraction at the Lowlands festival on the 19th of August.

The National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden features a small photo exhibition on Mark Driessen's fieldwork research project in Southern Jordan. In this small exhibition you will see a selection of nine photos, made in Udhruh. This ancient Jordanian settlement lies fifteen kilometres east of Petra,…

The Wadi al Jizzi Archaeological Project is a systematic and long term archaeological surface survey project, investigating the rich archaeological heritage of the Wadi al Jizzi region (Oman) from the Paleolithic until the early Modern period.

Research facilities within reach of LIBC members:

Update : March 2020 Director: Professor Dr Harco Willems (KU Leuven), co-director Dr Marleen De Meyer (KU Leuven & NVIC)

As far back as 1575, Leiden University researchers have been leaving their mark on the world.

Situated on the west coast of modern Turkey, the site of Ephesus is one of the largest excavations in Turkey and one of the most visited tourist attractions. Only one tenth of the city has been exposed until now although the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Vienna (ÖAI) has been excavating here…

Many important topics in computer science, such as the correctness of software, the efficiency of algorithms and the modeling of complicated systems, depend on sound theoretical underpinnings. In the Theory group, we study these fundamental building blocks and develop verification methods to prove system…

Archiving Medieval and Post-Medieval Archaeological Fieldwork Data from the Eastern Mediterranean (600-2000)

A neural network mimics how our brain works. Evolutionary algorithms use the principle of natural selection to solve complex problems. This kind of 'natural computing' is being used to improve the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease or the production of steel.

In this thesis we use state-of-the-art observations and simulations to provide the best constraints to date on the HVS ejection rate and constraints on the stellar content and dynamics at the GC, including the progenitor binary populations and their star formation history.

Leiden University provides ambitious students with the most recent and innovative areas of knowledge, and offers them the freedom to develop their own area of expertise.

This long term project in Jordan is at the basis of many specialists’ studies and has several off-shoot projects. The project, with its many approaches, is also a framework for much teaching in Levantine Archaeology at Leiden University, especially concerning fieldwork methods, artefact studies, research…

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.

An overview of frequently asked questions

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.

Assistant Professor Vedran Dunjko and his team received a gift from Google to support their quantum research. The research focuses on whether quantum computers can provide new ways of understanding the mysteries of high-energy physics.

This project studies the roles of prehistoric foragers in past ecosystems to establish the character of past “natural” landscapes and enhance the management of current ones.

Curious about how sustainability fits into our university's strategic plan, or how much energy and water we consume? Read about it here.

This project examines the intriguing relationship between Greek literary criticism and Latin literature in Rome (first centuries BC and AD).

In the South African context, certain iconic images have been a dominant source for public understandings of historical events. The emphasis given these images tends to overshadow the historical value of other more personal photographic sources – like studio or amateur photography. This project looks…

Ongoing microwear analysis of the flint artefacts from the Funnelbeaker period suggests that flint had a pivotal role in the representation and structuration of the cosmological order of Funnelbeaker society.

Leiden University provides ambitious students with the most recent and innovative areas of knowledge, and offers them the freedom to develop their own area of expertise.

Set up in 1991, this unique project aims to identify and describe the common lexical heritage of the most important Indo-European languages and language branches. The project has thus far resulted in twelve volumes published as The Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series (Brill, Leiden).

How did institutions and structures operate throughout the Muslim world from the earliest history of Islam into the early modern period?

D. Fontijn, Quentin Bourgeois & Arjan Louwen (eds) (2012). This publication describes the history of “barrow landscape” near Echoput in Apeldoorn. Two burial mounds were examined and it became clear that our prehistoric predecessors carefully managed and maintained the open area for a long time, before…

We live in a data-drenched society awash with numbers. An inhabitant of the democratic polis of Athens (5th and 4th centuries B.C.E.) increasingly found himself surrounded by numerical data. This project aims to analyze the communicative functions and the political meaning(s) ascribed to these public…

Research at the MCBIM group is comprised of the following research themes:

This collection brings into conversation several kinds of scholarship on medieval authorship which have tended to remain separate over the last two to three decades, a period of steadily increasing scholarly interest in this topic.

The NEASQC project brings together academic experts and industrial end-users to investigate and develop a new breed of Quantum-enabled applications that can take advantage of NISQ (Noise Intermediate-Scale Quantum) systems in the near future. NEASQC is use-case driven, addressing practical problems…

Case Studies in Etruscan Ritual Behaviour

The Kroese-Duijsters symposium will be held in the Gorlaeus Building of the Faculty of Science.

Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on Eastern Cuisine and Western Foodways

The project aims to conserve and consolidate the entrance gate to the Roman Desert Frontier Fort Qasr Bshir.

Now and then we organise book launches to present the latest publications, both academic and popular, in our broad field.

Psycholinguistic research

In Quantum mechanics, particles can be in multiple positions simultaneously. Yet, when a measurement is made, the particle is found only in one place. Technology has come to a point where we may design experiments that will tell us how.