The one-year master's in Politics, Society and Economy of Asia, a specialisation of Leiden University’s master's in Asian Studies, offers a large and varied selection of subjects and the freedom to choose the areas on which you will focus.

The master’s programme in Colonial and Global History at Leiden University offers the most in-depth and comprehensive programme on the history of colonialism and globalisation currently available in Europe.

Arts and culture

Are predictive archaeological maps a reliable tool to play an important role in the spatial planning? One of the goals of this project was to develop best practices for the production and application of the models.

This paper examines cyber intelligence in the context of national and international security.

Many people in Asia and the West are attracted to Buddhism. This is because of this religion’s ‘image’ of being exotic and authentic.

How did the Dutch Empire compare with other imperial enterprises? And how was it experienced by the indigenous peoples who became part of this colonial power?

World history, connectivity and material culture, edited by Martin Pitts and Miguel John Versluys. From Cambridge University Press.

This project investigates ancient water management of streams, springs and runoffs on the archaeological site of Monte Albán, Mexico, as a means to contribute with different stakeholders in the development of sustainable solutions to water problems today such as floods and scarcity.

How has migration affected Irish and Italy society since 1945?

The bi-annual interactive seminars of the Platform for Postcolonial Readings are all about sharing our enthusiasm about our field of research and our eagerness to learn more about its theoretical intricacies. Our seminars, although informal, adopt a well-defined format. Each meeting is organized around…

In the field of Western art music, improvisation has become a much discussed topic. In this interdisciplinary study I argue that in this context, improvisation is not to be seen as a quasi-autonomous skill or art form, but as an aspect of music-making in general.

The overall aim of the project is to investigate interests and their development over time in a daily life context, with particular attention for the transition from late secondary to post secondary education, and from late post secondary education to early career.

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…

Leiden University has introduced the training program for the Basic Qualification in Education (BKO). This is mandatory and has been made available for (university) teachers and professors to obtain a BKO certificate, depending on the timing, scope, and duration of their employment.

This research project analyses the use of different, often competing, stereotypical images of Rome in Humanist Latin Poetry, by considering it as strategic appropriation of the classical heritage.

The research aims to understand how did Cuban and Dominican landscape encapsulate historical conceptual transformations about human –nature spiritual interaction after the Spanish conquest? More specifically, what are the present day cultural associations with Cuban and Dominican natural landscape?…

Cognitive enhancement reflects the use of any (legitimate) means such as for example food supplements to reach one’s personal best.

Day-to-day activities are important in the development of social identities, the establishment of social standing, and the communal understanding of societal rules. This perspective is broadly referred to as practice theory and relates to the power of an overarching social structure and the individual…

Are UN sanctions regimes in need of further formalization in terms of substantive design, procedural architecture and with a view to regulating and governing the interplay with other regimes?

What are trait-trait relationships in wetlands? To what extent the so-called leaf economics traits deviate from terrestrial ecosystems? How traits specific to wetland plant relate to plant strategies? What’s the relationship between wetland plant traits to the ecosystem functioning (e.g. productivity,…

The Modern and Contemporary Cluster is the largest within LUCAS and home to more than 100 staff members and PhD candidates.

An interdisciplinary and innovative research group combining History, underwater archaeology, GIS and wood provenancing methods.

The goal of this book is to place architectural studies, in which people’s interactions with each other and material resources are key, at the crossing of both landscape studies and material culture studies, where it belongs.

An account of a cognitive approach to historically informed staging.

The Faculty of Medicine

The polypept(o)ide hybrid material attracted more and more attention over the past decade by combining the multifunctional characteristics of polypeptides with the shielding characteristics of polypeptoid-pSar possessing similar properties as a shielding material as polvethylene glycol(PEG). Polysarcosine…

A study by a Leiden-Wageningen group shows that present-day humans are biologically poorly equipped to deal with the toxins they are regularly exposed to in smoky environments: compared to earlier hominins, we modern humans are probably even worse off. The study appeared in Molecular Biology and Evolution.…

LIAS has a School of Asian Studies (SAS), a School of Middle-Eastern Studies (SMES) and a School of Religious Studies (LUCSoR). These designations, and the fields within them, remain foundational to our work. At the same time, the academic community benefits from the presence of cross-regional networks…

Case-studies on use-wear analysis of prehistoric flint tools

How to get involved in sustainability? Read more about four projects that Leiden University helped realise in the past few years.

Sub-Saharan Africa has seen a significant rise in terrorist acts and radicalized youth since the appearance of Boko Haram in 2009 and the fall of Libya in 2012. This book investigates the deeper layers of radicalization in Sub-Saharan Africa, which is situated in a larger global tendency.

Are there elements of the lost performance practice of the nineteenth century that we can rediscover and use to shed new light on the performance of Brahms’ music for orchestra today?

In this project of the Center for Public Values & Ethics (CPVE) ongoing research is conducted on the history of advice to Dutch central government by so-called State committees from 1814 to 2014. State committees have been installed by Dutch central government since 1814 to provide expert advice, research…

The Film Club is a ProParte sub-group.

What made the early Islamic empire so successful and have we missed the story by neglecting crucial evidence? The 7th-century Arab conquests changed the socio-political configurations in the Mediterranean and Eurasia forever. Yet we do not really know how the Arabs managed to gain dominance of this…

The Faculty of Archaeology

With Leiden University Press, LUCIS publishes a peer-reviewed book series “Debates on Islam and Society” aimed at a broad audience. A number of books in this series are available in open access.

In a rapidly changing world it is crucial that our teaching keeps pace with the dynamics of society.

Archaeobotanic research by prof. dr. C. Bakels and students on agriculture.

What is the mechanism of action preceding a physiological effects induced by metallic nanoparticles?

Negotiation can only really be an alternative to warfare, if the parties agree on a framework of rules and procedures. And if the confidence of the partners may increase in another. But negotiations continue to wage war by peaceful means.

In his lecture, Professor Platt discussed some of the main arguments from his latest book entitled “Beyond these Walls: Rethinking Crime and Punishment in the United States”

This research cluster explores processes of cultural creation, reception and transformation within a wide range of societal contexts from the early Middle Ages until c. 1800.

Global climate change is manifest by local-scale changes in precipitation and temperature patterns, including the frequency of extreme weather events (EWEs). EWEs are associated with a myriad range of adverse environmental and societal consequences, including negative impacts to agriculture and food…

The key subject of the research programme Cities, Migration and Global Interdependence 1500 - Now (CMGI) is Inequality (at local, national and global levels).

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…

Review of new technical decisionsupport systems in the environmental field, and application in water management decission processes.

UnMiSSeD studies the interaction between misinformation and science in societal debates using a mixed qualitative-quantitative approach.