Students at Leiden University believe that their degree programmes should focus more on sustainability. These are the findings of a survey of more than 550 students by Leiden University Green Office.

Dr. Simon Willmetts from the University of Leiden’s Institute for Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) has been selected for a stay at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS-KNAW) in Amsterdam.

Fishes rely heavily on sound to find their way during migration or dispersal. Many species are affected by noise pollution. Hans Slabbekoorn from the Institute of Biology Leiden received a HORIZON2020 grant of 500,000 euros to study the impact of sound conditions on movement decisions of fishes.

The aim of the project is two-fold: first, to further scholarly understanding of the human dynamics that shaped the growth of Dorestad in a broader, international context; and second, to test the potential of multi-isotopic analyses on an early medieval Dutch assemblage.

In the 19th century, Old English poems were claimed as cultural heritage by various non-Anglophone nations, including Scandinavians, Germans and Dutch. These competing nationalistic, cultural appropriations happened against the backdrop of a growing interest in early medieval English language and literature…

Leiden University 2016 thesis awards were awarded to Kaspar Pucek (History), Mariska Meijer (Bio Medical Sciences) and Paul Kozowyk (Archaeology).

After a year of hard work, the first class of students from the Master of Laws: Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights received their well-deserved master diplomas on Monday 29 August.

Lecture, Workshop and Egeria Lecture

Every year the newly arriving Archaeology students are invited to join an active introduction day during which they get to know the Faculty and each other in a playful and fun way. The activities are organised by Study Adviser Cleody van der Eijk. ‘It helps people to loosen up and get to know each o…

Over the past few months, Urban Studies students have been helping to think about the realisation of the Humanities Campus. To test their knowledge in practice, the future urban specialists gave advice on several different aspects, including thermal energy storage and the new central campus building…

On September 20, the Austria Centre Leiden and the Leiden Jewish Studies Association convened a panel to celebrate the launch of Prof. dr. Sarah A. Cramsey’s new book Uprooting the Diaspora: Jewish Belonging and the “Ethnic Revolution” in Poland and Czechoslovakia, 1936-1946.

In the journal series European Drama and Performance Studies, Jed Wentz has edited issue n° 19 - Historical Acting Techniques and the 21st-Century Body.

Over 30 ambassadors strengthened their ties with researchers and university leaders in a recent visit to Leiden University. Cross-border collaboration (both literal and figurative) was the theme of presentations and a tour of the Hortus botanicus.

The story of the iconic Silk Road is often told from the Chinese perspective. An exhibition at Oude UB focuses on the inhabitants and monuments of historical cities in Central Asia, a neglected part of the Silk Road. From 5 September to 17 October.

More than half of the Indonesian population lives in cities. What does this mean for public health? How sustainable are these megacities? This is the subject of the ‘Urban Transitions’ Summer Academy on West Java. This summer course is also the kick-off for a renewed interdisciplinary partnership…

Radhika Gupta has received a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council to study how transnational Islamic charitable networks are entangled with Western humanitarianism and neoliberal welfare frameworks.

Due to the unrest in the Middle East, many ancient Syrian manuscripts are no longer available or have even been destroyed. Professor of Old Testament Bas ter Haar Romeny received 77 microfilms of Syrian manuscripts, enabling him and his PhD students to research these ‘lost’ manuscripts.

Seven Leiden researchers have been awarded a prestigious Vici grant by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO).

The Tour of Asia, an afternoon filled with science and culture about Asia, attracted many visitors. In spite of the heavy rain, the visitors chose from among dozens of lectures and debates. This knowledge festival marked the opening of the Asian Library earlier in the day.

Besides being the author of such a classic work of literature as The Hobbit, Tolkien was also Professor of English Language and Literature in Oxford. How did he incorporate his research in his fiction? An international conference on the subject is being held in Leiden on 18 June.

The Centre for Digital Scholarship of Leiden University Libraries (UBL) and the Leiden Centre for Digital Humanities would like to invite you to the symposium on Tools Criticism on Thursday 21 November, from 10.00-18.00. The symposium will be held in the Vossius room of the University Library at Witte…

Call for Papers: Imperial Artefacts. History, Law, and the Looting of Cultural Property

The proposed investigation focuses on the Pre-Hispanic archaeological site Aguas Buenas recently documented by Dr. Alexander Geurds

Since 2017 guest researcher Gerrit de Wit has been working together with Congolese linguists and the Boa community to develop the oral Boa language into a written one. He tells us about 2 unique projects, which are steadily unearthing and describing the structure of a new language.

September 26 is the European Day of Languages. There are 24 official languages in Europe but some 200 languages in total are spoken on our continent. What good are all these different languages? And should we all learn Azerbaijani or Swedish? We asked Lisa Cheng, Professor of General Linguistics.

A thousand-year-old tooth has provided genetic evidence that the so-called

Peter Akkermans, Professor of Archaeology of the Middle East, cannot say for certain how much damage the destruction by IS has caused in Palmyra.

At the VIth Monte Albán Round Table conference (July 2011) in Oaxaca, Mexico, Maarten Jansen (Leiden University) together with Mexican archaeologists Dante García and Iván Rivera (both from the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia) discussed the topography and toponyms of the archaeological…

What do you get when you combine traditional storytelling, new technology, and a whole lot of creative passion? Sumak Kichwa Wawa, an Andean children's storybook using augmented reality, that's what! Assistant professor, Martine Bruil and researcher Ximena Buller Machado tell us more about this special…

Besides being the author of such a classic work of literature as The Hobbit, Tolkien was also Professor of English Language and Literature in Oxford. How did he incorporate his research in his fiction? An international conference on the subject is being held in Leiden on 18 June.

An archaeologist as a modern-day shaman. An unexpected comparison Professor by Special Appointment of Public Archaeology Luc Amkreutz will make in his inaugural lecture.

New publication reviews Dutch colonial sources on the Indigenous Brazilian Tapuia people: ‘For them the Dutch were another piece on the political chess board’

Maarten Jansen, professor emeritus at the Faculty of Archaeology, was appointed as Distinguished Emeritus Professor for two years at the University of Bonn. In this position, Jansen, a world-renowned specialist on ancient Mexican pictorial manuscripts, will further expand upon the long-standing collaboration…

NWO has awarded a VIDI grant to Alex Geurds for his research proposal entitled Networked practices of contact: Cultural identity at the Late Prehistoric settlement of Aguas Buenas, Nicaragua, AD 500-1522. Geurds will investigate material culture exchange along the frontier of the Mesoamerican and the…

After months of preparation, the moment of truth had arrived: would the skies above Leiden clear for the promised glitzy planet-and-star show? The people of Leiden turned out in their hundreds to go star-hunting on 25 September. They became more aware than ever of the effects of light pollution.

Astronomical observations in Chile, research into native heritage or the treatment of eye diseases in Brazil - Leiden is researching a large number and a wide variety of different topics in Latin America and the Caribbean. Researchers and representatives from 20 countries met on 11 May in Leiden to…

The project’s overall goal is to improve Indonesia’s environmental legal framework and its implementation by strengthening the regulatory capacity of the government, and by enhancing the capacity of CSOs and scholars to hold the government accountable for its regulatory performance.

When Floris Harm took up his role as director of the Leiden Asia Centre, he made a remarkable discovery on the university website. It turned out that a past family member was one of Leiden University’s first sinologists.

Humans are increasingly losing agency on social media. A team of legal scholars from Leiden University, computer scientists from other universities and civil society organisations, is conducting a study into the balance of power between Big Tech and users.

Master of Laws: Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights Outstanding Student Research Theses

The Research Catalogue (RC) is a searchable database for archiving artistic research. It comprises an open source, online, collaborative workspace application for the archiving, designing and publishing of artistic research.

Too often, tax scholars have a dual role: advising the government on legislation, while at the same time helping companies to pay as little tax as possible. This needs to change according to Bart Snels, a member of parliament for Dutch GreenLeft party.

Last month, with the help of the advisory groups the D&I Calendar was launched for the Faculty of Humanities. The calendar serves as a tool to create awareness about important dates related to diversity and inclusion and their potential impact on work and study.

Introducing the team's work on Comparison

On Tuesday November 25, 2025, Prof. dr. Sarah Cramsey travelled with students from her masters seminar on “New Approached to the Holocaust in Central and Eastern Europe” taught at the History Institute to Amsterdam for a unique opportunity. There, Ms. Lotte Sophie Groenendijk, an alum of the History…

Climate change, depletion of natural resources, loss of natural and cultural landscapes, and many other (ecological) sustainability challenges urge us to (re)evaluate human interaction with the natural world. This renewed environmental consciousness has invigorated not only scientists working on effects…

On 8 September the students of the European Law Master gathered in the Lorentzzaal for the festive opening of their programme.

Giulio Barbero and Matthias Müller-Brockhausen did their PhD research at the Leiden University Game Research Lab.

Koen Keijzer combined three mathematical models into one unified system capable of making meaningful predictions about how cells form blood vessels. This helps biologists studying the chaotic, leaky blood vessels found in and around tumours.

Cutting down global emissions of greenhouse gases to combat global warming won’t do the trick alone: we also need negative-emissions technology that can capture carbon dioxide directly out of the air. In the prestigious journal Global Environmental Change, PhD candidate Oscar Rueda and colleagues shed…