How can zebrafish research help understanding human diseases?

From self-driving cars to innovative drug development: artificial intelligence (AI) will fundamentally change our lives in many different ways. We study this technology at a deep and fundamental level. And we seek answers to questions about liability and privacy, for example. Our researchers from…

Two Leiden researchers of the Institute of Psychology have been given the opportunity to realise their research plans for the coming three years thanks to a Veni grant from the Netherlands organisation for scientific research. Hanneke Hendriks is researcher in the field of Social and organisational…

Psychologists Fenna Poletiek and Erik de Kwaadsteniet have received a grant from the FNV trade union to research people’s attitude to work if they receive a basic income. How do they plan to find answers?

The paper ‘Putting emotions in routes: the influence of emotionally laden landmarks on spatial memory’ by Francesco Ruotolo, Michiel Claessen and Ineke van der Ham just appeared in Psychological Research.

This year will see the start of not one but two citizen science projects in Leiden and The Hague. This is the outcome of a large survey among residents and researchers in both university cities. The Citizen Science Lab will help the winners implement their ideas, with support from the University and…

Human Rights at Risk brings together social scientists, legal scholars, and humanities scholars to analyze the policy challenges of human rights protection in the twenty-first century.

The individual in the EU: The application of insights from social psychology to improve the legitimacy and conflict-solving capability of the EU

Our Master Law in European and International Human Rights Law (LL.M.) looks at the various human rights protection mechanisms from a comparative perspective

Do humans and zebra finches share cognitive mechanisms that are important for speech perception?

In the future, physicians may be able to identify dementia much earlier than they can today because a computer algorithm will be able to predict from brain scans how our memory is going to develop.

Explores the relationship between technics and humanity, tracing the emergence of a bio-technical conception of existence in contemporary continental philosophy. Suny Press

What is the history of the humanities? What does this new field look like? How does it relate to the history of science or to the history of individual disciplines (linguistics, history, media studies)? And how can you participate?

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.…

Large carnivores and humans, along with their livestock, have co-existed for thousands of years. However, human population growth and an increase in economic activities are modifying the landscape for large carnivores and their prey.

Research into the evolutionary backgrounds of our diets can help us make the right choices in diet, health and lifestyle.

The Research Handbook on Labour, Business and Human Rights Law edited by prof. Janice Bellace of the University of Pennsylvania and ass. prof. Beryl ter Haar of Leiden University. The book is publisehd in Edward Elgars series on Human Rights.

Death’s Social and Material Meaning beyond the Human is edited by Jesse D. Peterson, Natashe Lemos Dekker and Philip R. Olson

A new research line is the development of liquid biopsy fingerprints to predict early Alzheimer’s disease (AD) stage in human in readily accessible body fluids in human (in collaboration with: Dr. Geert-Jan Groeneveld, CHDR; Prof. Elga de Vries, Free University Medical Center; and others).

There is no human society that does not employ a rich and diverse language. This course introduces you to linguistics, featuring interviews with well-known linguists and with speakers of many different languages. Join us to explore the miracles of human language!

On 18 June 2019, Peter Kempees defended his thesis 'Hard power and the European Convention on Human Rights'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. R.A. Lawson and Prof. H. Duffy.

What are the humanities? As the cluster of disciplines historically grouped together as “humanities” has grown and diversified to include media studies and digital studies alongside philosophy, art history and musicology to name a few, the need to clearly define the field is pertinent.

Large parts of the research described in this Thesis aims at the development of oligopeptide-masked toxins and their in situ immunoproteasome-mediated activation.

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

Are traces of fire use detectable in ancient hominin genomes?

Efficiently responding to others’ emotions has great survival value, especially for social species, such as primates, who establish close, long-term bonds with group members. The closest living relatives to humans are the chimpanzee and the bonobo. Studying these species, and comparing them on the exact…

Environmental Humanities in the New Himalayas: Symbiotic Indigeneity, Commoning, Sustainability showcases how the eco-geological creativity of the earth is integrally woven into the landforms, cultures, and cosmovisions of modern Himalayan communities.

This book explores how physicists, astronomers, chemists, and historians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries employed ‘epistemic virtues’ such as accuracy, objectivity, and intellectual courage. In doing so, it takes the first step in providing an integrated history of the sciences…

Milan van der Kuil, Anne Visser, Andrea Evers and Ineke van der Ham have published a paper in Frontiers in Psychology, entitled: A usability study of a serious game in cognitive rehabilitation: a compensatory navigation training in acquired brain injury patients.

Promotor: Prof.dr. J.A. Bouwstra, Co-promotor: Dr. A. El Ghalbzouri

Promotor: J.A. Bouwstra Co-promotor: A. El Ghalbzouri

Human skin equivalents (HSEs) can be a valuable tool to study aspects of human skin, including the skin barrier, or to perform chemical or toxicological screenings.

Are you thinking about studying European and International Human Rights Law? Learn more and watch the videos.

On Tuesday 23 May 2017, Jasmina Mackic defended her doctoral thesis ‘Proving discriminatory violence at the European Court of Human Rights’. The supervisor of the research is Vice Dean and Professor of Public International Law Larissa van den Herik. A brief summary of her thesis is provided below.

Promotors: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo, Prof.dr. H. Leirs (Univ. Antwerpen), Co-promotor: H.H. de Iongh

Citizens in multiple crime-ridden countries strongly support the militarization of security—that is, placing the military in charge of traditional policing duties. Yet, we know little about the determinants of such support. Do people approve of militarization even in the face of human fatalities? Political…

Heart failure is a major health care problem with high mortality.

Pericytes, the mural cells of blood microvessels, are important regulators of vascular morphogenesis and function that have been postulated to mechanically control microvascular diameter through as yet unknown mechanisms.

The work presented in this thesis addresses the role of the locus coeruleus (LC) - norepinephrine (NE) system in various aspects of human cognition, and the modulation of brain state.

The writings of Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) are famously and purposely marked by fragmentariness. Paradoxically, a central aim of his work was to connect: all his life he sought to further the integration of scholarship in the humanities which, he believed, had too long suffered from the prevalence…

On 18 March 2020, Hoko Horii defended her thesis ‘Child Marriage as a Choice. Rethinking agency in international human rights’. The doctoral research was supervised by prof. A.W. Bedner and prof. G.A. van Klinken.

The routine assumption that Upper Palaeolithic early modern humans in Europe were regular fire users who produced fire at will has never been tested against the archaeological record. Utilizing literature, database and microwear analytical approaches, this project seeks to establish the role and forms…

Many people in the Netherlands have difficulty managing on their income. Professor by special appointment Wilco van Dijk, affiliated to Leiden University and Nibud, is researching what we can do to gain a healthier approach to managing our finances. His inaugural lecture is on 1 April.

The central question in this book is whether there is a human right to family unification.

Promotor: Prof.dr. M. Danhof, Co-promotor: O.E. Della Pasqua

How are the epidermal lipid pathways involved in health and disease.

Transplantation of labial salivary glands to the eyelids for patients with dry eye appears to give excellent results clinically.

BACKGROUND: Explant human skin equivalents (Ex-HSEs) can be generated by placing a 4mm skin biopsy onto a dermal equivalent. The keratinocytes migrate from the biopsy onto the dermal equivalent, differentiate and form the epidermis of 1(st) generation Ex-HSEs. This is especially suitable for the expansion…