By effectively integrating world-class scientific research and excellent education, you will become a professional astronomer with an internationally recognized degree.

History is being taught at Leiden University since the days of Justus Lipsius [1547-1606]. In 1860, following the appointment of Robert Fruin as Leiden professor of Dutch History, modern historical investigation started in the Netherlands.

By effectively integrating word-class scientific research and excellent education, you will become a professional astronomer with an internationally recognized degree.

December 2020 saw the crowning publication of the Landscapes of Survival project by Professor Peter Akkermans. Its main topic is human habitation in marginal environments like the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. ‘The people living here built their own society, and they would not have viewed it as…

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

How can you see something that’s invisible? Well, with Euclid! This future ESA telescope will map the structure of the Universe and teach us more about invisible dark matter and dark energy. Scientific coordinator of Euclid and Leiden astronomer Henk Hoekstra explains how this works.

Galaxies are often found in clusters, which contain many “red and dead” members that stopped forming stars in the distant past. Now, an international team of astronomers, led by Andra Stroe of Leiden Observatory and David Sobral of Leiden and the University of Lisbon, has discovered that these comatose…

Is there extra-terrestrial life out there? It now looks as though we can sketch out an answer to this enduring question. Leiden Observatory is helping to build new instruments to find the most promising exoplanets.

The colonial and slavery past is an important theme in education and research at Leiden University. Particular attention is also paid to structural abuses that arose from this history and that often still persist in the present day.

There are currently two projects in Coptic Studies that are supported by the NVIC. Both are directed by Dr. Karel Innemee and both take place in the Wadi Natrun.

Three Dutch-Belgian telescopes have started operating at the ESO La Silla Observatory in Chile. This so-called BlackGEM array will scan the southern sky to hunt for cosmic events that produce gravitational waves, such as mergers of neutron stars and black holes. Leiden astronomer Rudolf le Poole is…

We know this, but we don’t act on it: eat healthily, move more, address our stress levels and sleep well. Internist and Professor of Diabetology Hanno Pijl is fascinated by the effect that a healthy lifestyle can have on health. He researches how this lifestyle is achievable and satisfying, for patients…

Researchers at LIACS are working to devise the computers of tomorrow that will be the backbone of the Cloud and Edge computing paradigms as well as the Internet of Things. In this respect, we are involved in research and development of high performance computing systems, embedded & real-time computing…

Leiden University has long history of research and teaching on Asian traditions, with a focus on language and philology, history, religious studies, philosophy, law and literature. Leiden has in the last thirty years also built up an equally impressive strength in the study of modern and contemporary…

Fundamental research teaches us how our brain decides to eat one more sweet, instead of doing exercise. A public information campaign about healthy lifestyle has little impact on the decision, as Professor of General Psychology Bernard Hommel is aware. However, he does know what works. But the question…

The main research objective is to map the cities of Roman Asia Minor in terms of location, size, urban amenities and juridical status, with the specific aim to understand the reasons how this urban settlement pattern arose.

Research into research improves the academic system. CWTS studies and evaluates the academic system in various ways. One way is to provide information on the productivity and impact of academics by documenting how many publications they or their universities produce and how often these publications…

How do you make a technology sustainable that does not even exist yet? Well, by bringing together an interdisciplinary team of pioneering European experts right at the start and paying attention to sustainability right from the development phase.

Every year, Leiden University welcomes some 27,000 students from 115 different countries. In educating these students, we are committed to ensuring that the quality of our tuition meets or exceeds the highest-possible standards.

Urbanization brings benefits like housing and jobs but also challenges like biodiversity loss. CML's Urban research program uses science to create sustainable cities, focusing on the built environment (circular economy, urban mining) and enhancing urban nature for biodiversity and human benefits.

The majority of scientists, from archaeologists through to zoologists, collect enormous volumes of data. Their massive databases contain large amounts of information which is difficult for humans to filter. With a solid grounding in statistics and computer science, we can develop algorithms for analyzing…

Our teaching methods make use of technological innovations, our lecturers share their knowledge with one another and they are constantly alert to possibilities for innovation and depth in their teaching.

Get to know us through our online and in-person events for prospective students!

Get to know us through our online and in-person events for prospective students!

This project studies how Islamic charitable networks in seeking to address global needs position themselves as universalist projects, entangled with Western humanitarianism and neoliberal welfare regimes. It seeks to understand how and to what extent contemporary transnational Islamic charitable networks…

The Colonial and Global History (research) programme at Leiden University offers the most in-depth and comprehensive programme of European expansion and globalisation currently available in Europe.

Leiden University's Citizen Science Lab supports and organizes initiatives where anyone can get started with scientific data and research. This is how we enrich research with insights from the community, make science accessible to all, and tackle important local issues together.

This publication of the School of Advanced Study of the University of London is one of the outcomes of the Landscapes of Early Roman Colonization project and the Colonial Rural Networks project (NWO, Dr. T.D. Stek). The volume, edited by Tesse Stek and prof. Gert-Jan Burgers of the Free University Amsterdam,…

A mere day after setting foot ashore in the Bahamas on October 13th 1492, Christopher Columbus notes the broad foreheads of the inhabitants of the Americas. These permanently altered cranial shapes are deliberately created through the application of pressure to the head of the infant in the first years…

How did slaves in the eighteenth century manage to empower themselves and their kin, and why did this become all the more difficult in the nineteenth century?

Legal proceedings are often time-consuming, costly and stressful. Accessible out-of-court dispute resolution can sometimes offer a good alternative, but having access to reliable and efficient judicial proceedings remains equally important.

Marten Soolmans (1613-1641) studied law in Leiden at the same time that Rembrandt lived in the city. Rembrandt painted Soolmans and his wife Oopjen in 1634, after all three had moved to Amsterdam. This remarkable portrait of the sumptuously dressed Soolmans can be seen at the Kamerlingh Onnes Building,…

Our object is to identify and characterize transcription factors involved in lignocellulosic biomass degradation in the filamentous fungus Aspergillus niger.

Hieratic Papyrology

The project GRADIENTS investigates what it meant to be European in colonial Africa where identification as European often did not depend on skin colour and was understood on a spectrum with many gradients.

Research in the History and International Studies 1900-present specialisation addresses the interconnectedness and interdependence of contemporary global political, economic and cultural developments from a multidisciplinary perspective which is rooted in the humanities.

The Colonial and Global History Research Programme of the Leiden University Institute for History combines a deep curiosity of transcultural processes such as imperialism, (de)colonization, and globalization with critical historical research on regional societies in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

Lecture, Unfolding Finitudes

The map application includes information from old and new buildings archaeological projects. This makes it possible to investigate whether water facilities (wells, cisterns) and waste facilities (cesspits, sewers) were the privilege of Leiden’s wealthy elite in the late 16th and 17th centuries or whether…

AstroEDU is one of the world's most inspiring education innovations, according to the experts at HundrED. It is a recognition for a place where educators can discover, review, change, and share astronomy- and space-related activities for primary and secondary education, and where they can have their…

ESA’s Euclid mission is to reveal the dark side of the Universe. But how? Professor of Observational cosmology Henk Hoekstra explains it in his interview with Space Team Europe and Horizon Magazine. He uses enlightening examples such as… a swimming pool! Listen to Henk Hoekstra to understand how Euclid…

On the evening of Tuesday January 31st, the physics institute organizes its triannual meeting for over seventy high school teachers. The program consists of lectures on developments in modern physics and the latest initiatives in the world of education.

'Dialogues Between Artistic Research and Science and Technology Studies', edited by Henk Borgdorff, Peter Peters and Trevor Pinch, will be published by Routledge on November 18

After a year of hard work, the second class of students of the Master of Laws: Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights received their well-deserved master diplomas on Monday 28 August.

Children in the Netherlands develop prejudices based on ethnicity at an early age. Ymke de Bruijn (27) came to this conclusion in her dissertation ‘Child Interethnic Prejudice in the Netherlands: Social Learning from Parents and Picture Books’. For her PhD project she took a closer look at the behaviours…

Dust particles in space form the basis for new stars and planets. But what do these particles consist of and how do they behave? Sascha Zeegers studied this. PhD defence 1 November.

If three or more objects move around each other, history cannot be reversed. That is the conclusion of an international team of researchers based on computer simulations of three black holes orbiting each other. The researchers, led by the Dutch astronomer Tjarda Boekholt, publish their findings in…

Three projects with Leiden researchers are to receive a subsidy from NWO for the construction or renovation of large-scale research facilities. They will be working on electron microscopy, an X-omics initiative and an X-ray telescope. The projects are part of the National Roadmap for Large-Scale Scientific…

An international team of astronomers, including Leiden's Maciej Bilicki, has discovered an enormous supercluster of galaxies. The supercluster had previously been overlooked because it was obscured by our own Milky Way. The researchers are publishing their findings in the Monthly Notices of the Royal…