The corona crisis is also a disinformation crisis for the global community in general, and for the European Union (EU) in particular. What is less clear is how adequate the EU’s response to the ‘infodemic’ has been. This essay exposes the dangers of disinformation for the EU, which have intensified…

On the brink of war, what influences decision makers to attack another country? Using innovative theoretical angles, Femke E. Bakker explores whether the basic assumptions of democratic peace theory are indeed correct. She stresses the microfoundations of conflict, questioning the assumptions on…

This research project focuses on the interaction of Buddhist institutions, Chinese central and local governments, and local gentry in the 'transforming temples into schools' movement.

We aim to unravel the molecular mechanisms involved in the transformation of eukaryotic cells by Agrobacterium.

A global perspective

The minor Global Affairs is built on two pillars of International Relations: International Security and International Political Economy. This minor aims to provide students with the tools and knowledge to understand the most important global trends and challenges.

By choosing Leiden University, you’ll be choosing to broaden your personal and academic horizons. You’ll be in excellent company too, because you’ll be part of an inspiring community of students, lecturers and professors from all over the world. Founded in 1575, ours is the oldest university in the…

Na Zhou (PhD at ICLON) researched how vocational teachers’ learning takes place in a work placement programme and how their learning supports their teaching in school. Defence on 1 March.

Conference

PhD defence

If you follow the western media, you are likely to think of ‘Africa’ as the continent of origin of desperate migrants, a continent of hunger and disease and a breeding ground for international terrorism. But if you want to see the bigger picture, you should look no further than the African Studies scholars…

On Monday 15 February 2016 the annual Speckmann Prizes were granted at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology. BA-studenten Laura Bakker, Kimberly Drijver and Martijn Kooijman were awarded for the best Fieldwork NL project; Rosi Aryal was honoured for having written the best…

Strengthening the cooperation between Moroccan, other African, and Dutch institutions for higher education. This was the focus of a two-day seminar at NIMAR (Netherlands Institute Morocco) in Rabat in July, during which scholars of the African Studies Centre Leiden interacted with colleagues from NIMAR…

The recent ruling by the Amsterdam Court that Schiphol must reduce the number of flights from 500,000 to 460,000 is now ‘up in the air’ following the collapse of the Dutch government. How and when the reduction in flights is likely to take effect is now totally unclear.

This month, the NISIS publication “Islamic Studies in the Twenty-first Century: Transformations and Continuities” was published by Amsterdam University Press. This volume brings together contributions of various speakers at past NISIS Autumn Schools, providing an overview of important issues in the…

What can we learn from how maritime conflicts were managed in the past? What significance did Maritime Conflict Management have in shaping the standards of diplomacy and international law in pre-modern Atlantic Europe (1200-1600)?

In Dutch nature, plant species that depend on pollination by insects are disappearing. Environmental scientist Kaixuan Pan shows this after analysing 87 years of measurements from more than 365,000 locations. Several national and international media reported on the study results. Below is an overview…

Arts and leisure, Arts and leisure

LED3 is the combined effort of three excellent institutes of Leiden University. Through joined hands, we are able to give rise to a more effective early drug discovery pipeline. Let us briefly introduce the three institutes.

This project aims to identify which aspects of exploring a novel environment produce beneficial effects on memory. The effects of novelty will be investigated across the lifespan, including children, adolescents and older adults.

When to launch a next-generation product in a competitive market and how much capacity should be allocated to it

Ten Leiden researchers will receive funding of up to 280,000 euros from the Dutch Research Council (NWO). They will use this grant to develop their research ideas in the coming three years.

Lecture, LIAS Lunch Talk Series

Pui Lun Chan defended his thesis on 12 September 2017

Here you can find an overview of the Erasmus+ projects undertaken by Leiden University since 2015.

The research will touch upon the communal role of text and the actions of interpretation and discussion that developed among Jews in exile.

Everyone most obey the law. If you don’t, you will face the police and the courts. The application of national, European and international criminal law would seem to be a matter of following the letter of the law. But the reality is more nuanced. Criminal law scholars and criminologists from very different…

Our DNA molecules are packaged by proteins in compact structures. The aim of this project is to understand how modern gene editing techniques nevertheless get access to their target in the DNA.

Cette étude montre que le développement phonético-phonologique en fulfulde et bambara est à la foiscomparable au développement langagier dans d’autres langues du monde et influencé par les caractéristiques phonétiques et phonologiques de ces deux langues notamment au niveau de la phonotaxe.

On 26 June 2019, Lisa Louwerse defended her thesis 'The EU’s Conceptualisation of the Rule of Law in its External Relations: Case Studies on Development Cooperation and Enlargement'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. C.A.P. Hillion.

Vulnerability and the associated levels of social resilience is what fascinates the researchers at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology. What links a Japanese fisherman after the tsunami at Fukushima with a Ghanaian goldminer in an increasingly industrialised work environment?…

The LUC Fund supports the Leiden University College The Hague (LUC) programme and community. LUC provides excellent research-led interdisciplinary teaching on global challenges, equipping students with the knowledge and skills necessary to become socially responsible and engaged global citizens. This…

On 9 January 2019, Willem van der Muur defended his thesis 'Land rights and the forces of adat in democratizing Indonesia'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. A.W. Bedner and Prof. dr. J.M. Otto.

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

The mission of Software and AI in Business (SA&B)connects the domains of science, business, and policy. Scientific research we focus on at Leiden in areas such as artificial intelligence promises to reshape our societies for the better. Translating science into positive societal impact however requires…

Correctly interpreting the patterns of fire evidence in the archaeological record will illuminate the origin of human fire use.

In Sri Lanka, a prominent Singhalese Buddhist monk publicly proclaims that it is not a sin to kill Tamils. In Japan, the family register kept in a Buddhist temple and specifying the outcaste status of a lineage is provided to private detectives investigating the marriageability of a young woman. Throughout…

Bacteria caught red-handed, deeply frozen just as they were about to cause Lyme’s disease. Ariane Briegel is wildly enthusiastic about the wonders she observes thanks to three elements: a freezing technique, a camera-equipped microscope, and AI. ‘It’s fascinating. Every single cell is different.’

Understanding others’ emotional behavior is essential for navigating daily social life. But how is such an understanding achieved? The eye-tracking study by Yung-Ting Tsou and colleagues shows that children with hearing loss adopt a unique visual strategy that makes uses of explicit visual information…

Imprint of Action is the first large-scale study focussing entirely on sociocultural impact in archaeology and, as such, is explorative in nature; it provides unique insights into the workings of interaction and participation in archaeological events, and openly shares qualitative and quantitative research…

Fieldwork

How is vegetative development regulated in plants and how does this affect a plant’s life history strategy?

This project combines an extensive new open database on linguistic distributions, spatial modelling and areal linguistics in order to disentangle the roles of social and environmental factors on the emergence of linguistic diversity patterns of South America.

Reconstructing language history and prehistory in the context of the Indo-European language family.

Until recently, the role of external information processing in intelligence has rarely been investigated quantitatively or experimentally. A group of researchers from Erasmus University Rotterdam, Leiden University, GGZ Rivierduinen, and University of Edinburgh measured in a new way how and when people…

Can excessive worrying be reduced via stimulation of the vagus nerve?

At the center of this research project lies a practice-based, artistic exploration of the impact of digitalization on the lived reality of both physical and cognitive labor.