The use of N fertilizers has increased worldwide in the past century. While this increased input of N has increased food productivity, it has also contributed to decreases in biodiversity, soil quality and environmental health, including increases in greenhouse gas emissions.

The topic of Historical Linguistics and Philology at LUCL is language change in its broadest sense.

With our research and teaching, we help make the world a better place. We join in the academic and public debate, and seek answers to economic and social issues – not just at the local and regional level but at the global one too.

Neil Young and Philosophy, edited by Douglas L. Berger, explores the meanings, importance, and philosophical dimensions of the music, career, and life of this prolific singer/songwriter over the past five decades.

Osteoarchaeology is a rich field for reconstructing past lives in that it can provide details on sex, age-at-death, stature, and pathology in conjunction with the cultural, social, and economic aspects of the person’s environment and burial conditions. While osteoarchaeological research is common in…

Doctoral Thesis

Through language and culture, history, anthropology, and sociology, we delve into the countries, populations, and societies of South and Southeast Asia. From this perspective, we address global issues such as migration, heritage, and colonialism.

The terms ‘social’ , ‘collective’ or ‘public’ memory, are often contrasted with ‘private’, ‘individual’ or ‘personal’ memory. All these terms derive from a fairly new and interdisciplinary scholarly field that is often referred to as ‘memory studies’, and that according to some critics has developed…

LUCAS hosts a wide variety of research. Here we outline some of the most important research themes.

PhD Research Projects at LUCDH and Affiliated Faculties

In August 2024 LUCL published its Self-Assessment for the past 6 years (2018-2023), which is now made open access. The international evaluation committee made the site visit in October 2024 and their report is expected to appear in March 2024.

LUCDH has collated a list of useful DH links and Granting opportunities:

Religion and Orientalism in Asian Studies analyses the role of religion in past and present understandings of Asia.

In the master’s programme in Archaeology, you can follow courses on the archaeology of West Asia, deepening your understanding of this region’s fascinating past.

Study all aspects of cultural heritage from an archaeological prespective.

Our public programme includes lecture series, conferences, visiting fellowships, panel discussions and many other interesting events. Have a look at what we've organised in the past years.

In the podcast series 'Open Geesten', historians Joost Welten and Nadia Bouras tell us about their research and how history is intergrated in modern society. In short: what can the past tell us about the present?

In this course, we will focus on the fascinating history of the Arabic Medieval World. We will take you on a journey through the Middle Ages. All along, we will present you with historiographical debates and dilemmas and travel back and forth in time explaining to you how events of the past affected…

The Laboratory for Human Osteoarchaeoloy examines human remains and their burial context to address questions about the human past.

Leiden heeft de oudste botanische tuin van Nederland, gesticht in 1590.

The Centre for Computational Life Sciences organizes monthly seminars and other events in order to bring scientists together and to enhance the exchange of ideas. Please click on Upcoming Events to have a look at our programme. Or click on the other tabs for past events, where PDF files of presentations…

This is a study of Plateau Shimakonde, a sub-dialect of the Makonde language which is spoken on the Makonde Plateau in northern Mozambique.

This study is an attempt to reconstruct the muted violent past by breaking the monopoly of the Turkish state over the memory of the Armenian genocide.

A core interest of our cluster members concerns processes of reception, transformation and (interlingual and intermedial) translation in medieval and early modern art, literature and media from diachronic and synchronic perspectives (in time, space, and between media).

The Brazilian economy has long been defined by its enormous potential. Over the past 30 years, some of this has at last been realised. Latin America’s largest economy has rapidly risen in global importance while poverty at home has declined. Yet, despite periods of progress, Brazil remains prone to…

A recent archaeology of Trio movements

It is a common technique in global optimization with expensive black-box functions to learn a surrogate-model of the response function from past evaluations and use it to decide on the location of future evaluations.

On 11 June 2020, Sabine Witting defended her thesis 'Child Sexual Abuse in the Digital Era: Rethinking Legal Frameworks and Transnational Law Enforcement Collaboration'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. J.J. Sloth-Nielsen and Prof. S. van der Hof.

The aim of this project was to estimate emissions from lead products-in-use for the past, the present and the future and assess the development of toxicological risks associated with these products.

A portrait of the complex historical process of over 500 years of European colonialism in the New World.

Indonesia is, and has long been, an important object of study for academics in Leiden in a wide range of disciplines.

Can we really speak about Jewish musicological, musical thought and what is the essence of this thought?

This study explores the role of linguistic data in the reconstruction of Dolgan (pre)history by analyzing contact-induced changes and using them to infer information about the nature of the contact settings in which they occurred.

The research that is united in the Liveable Planet programme, touches upon a wide range of aspects of human life. The goal is to deepen and expand the scope and to connect more researchers. The following case studies are examples of current research projects.

This volume provides one of the most comprehensive overviews of the archaeology of a single Caribbean island yet published. Drawing together scholars from the Caribbean, north America and Europe, all working from a range of disciplines within the broader scope of archaeology, and drawing upon recent…

In the past years access to EU law has been significantly enhanced via services such as EUR-Lex. This development not only allows for easy retrieval of individual legal acts, but for collecting information about the evolution of EU law in the aggregate as well.

The Global Politics of Confucianism, a monograph contracted with Columbia University Press, analyzes the interaction between Confucianism and globalism in past and present, using history to critically engage Confucianism’s place in contemporary international relations and policy debates.

Research and education are two of the pillars the SAILS programme is built on and which we are keen to expand on. Communication of research to researchers, students, companies and other societal partners is another key element.

The End Of Our Fifth Decade. Corrie Bakels & Hans Kamermans (eds) (2012)

Haunting the future through poetry

This book explores how public health concerns and political agendas influenced each other in the US over the past century.

This centre brings together the research of the members of the Institute of Philosophy and affiliated academics whose work focuses on the history of philosophy broadly conceived. Research interests range from ancient to near-contemporary philosophy in various regions of the world, and cover all subdisciplines…

This NWO-funded research programme focuses on the assumptions and methodology of the writing of history of science. History of science is in many respects a flourishing discipline: it currently yields an impressive volume of studies. Systematic reflection about the ways in which history of science may…

This project investigates generational dialogues about the legacies and memories of labour, student and communist movements in the Arab world. The research focuses in particular on video and installation art by young makers born in the 1980s that address the generation of their parents and the events…

One often sees gloomy Dutch newspaper headlines about pupils’ arithmetic skills in elementary schools. But is the situation really so bad? Marian Hickendorff is conducting intricate research on performance in and the teaching of arithmetic. The conclusions she draws beg to differ.

The Leiden Faculty of Archaeology is a world renowned academic centre for the study of the past. Our archaeologists and heritage experts are involved in innovative projects all over the world.

Objects and framings of heritage, archives, and academic knowledge production generate worldwide, fierce societal debates on the legacies of colonial violence, past injustice and present-day institutional racism. Whether bronzes from Benin, daggers from Bali, fossils from Java, photo-albums from…

The one-year master's in East Asian Studies, a specialisation of Leiden University’s master's in Asian Studies, offers focused study of either China, Japan or Korea.

How will we celebrate our anniversary in 2025?