It’s not a regular occurrence at Leiden University: two professors giving their inaugural lecture on the same day. Berna Güroğlu and Ellen de Bruijn specialise in related disciplines: they both research the influence of social context on processes in the brain – Güroğlu in adolescents and De Bruijn…

Some 5000 years ago the people of the corded ware culture exchanged ideas about death on a continental scale. There were strong gender differences in these ideas: men were buried in an international style, and women in a local style. This discovery was made by archaeologist Quentin Bourgeois.

The origins of Surinamese rice, a digital twin of the Earth and a large big-data project in the Chilean sky: three Leiden scientists receive an ENW-KLEIN grant for innovative, fundamental research.

Recently, Valentina Azzarà joined the Faculty of Archaeology as a postdoc in the Archaeology of the Near East research group. She mostly focuses on the archaeology of Eastern Arabia, especially Oman. “I literally fell in love with the place.”

Anyone who knows Aris Politopoulos will be aware of his passion for teaching. Almost winning the Leiden University Teaching Award in 2020, he is known for his use of digital tools to improve his classes. Now he has been accepted to the Leiden Teacher’s Academy. ‘Here I can meet people with innovative…

The University’s Executive Board (College van Bestuur) has decided to continue the Leiden University profile area Asian Modernities and Traditions for another four years, from 2015 to 2018. By 2018, AMT2 commits itself to achieve demonstrable results in enhancing the visibility of Asian research both…

Explore the One Among Zeroes |0100| project and its role in shaping the future of the digital economy, human-environment dynamics, and urban heritage in Indonesia's cities.

An evening program in the University Library and Middle Eastern Library in Leiden for everyone who has something to do with the Middle East; from Tajikistan to the Mahreb and from Istanbul to Sanaa. View the oldest books and clay tablets from the collection and listen to the most fascinating stories…

This year it is 40 years ago that LOVA was established, which we want to celebrate with a seminar around the theme “Gender Moves”. We invite you to join us on May 10, 2019, at Leiden University, to explore how gender is enacted and reproduced in movement and how gendered movement contributes to dismantling…

How do you go about the sustainable restoration of a nineteenth-century ship without affecting its historical worth? Leiden University students from the master’s programme in Industrial Ecology spent six months working on this question. We spoke to Hidde Boom (25) and Tycho Jongenelen (25), two of the…

How did manioc, a poisonous root, become the staple of Amazonia and change the lives of prehistoric Amazonian peoples? Veni grant recipient, Konrad Rybka aims to unravel this mystery using a variety of research methods across different disciplines.

Scientific research, heritage management and public outreach intertwined.

Researchers from Leiden and Indonesia work together on a range of projects on topics such as disappearing languages and cultures, the role of Islam, circular economy, biodiversity and medicine. They also work on projects to improve legal education and make Dutch sources and Indonesian heritage accessible…

Take a walk through any city, and you are likely to come across a brightly coloured mural. Although these paintings often seem to serve solely as a backdrop for Instagram snapshots, art history professor Minna Valjakka says there are rich traditions and intricate histories that uncover more critical…

Archaeologist Corinne Hofman wins the Distinguished Lorentz Fellowship 2018/19 for research into the changing world of indigenous peoples as a result of colonialism. “The perspective of indigenous communities is still lacking in most history books.

The Hortus Botanicus is celebrating its 425-year anniversary this year. It’s the oldest botanical garden in the Netherlands, but how did it come into existence and what kind of research takes place there?

Dr Sarah Schrader, an expert in the study of human remains, received a VIDI grant for a research project on health and inequality. In present day people with a high socio-economic status encounter fewer health risks than those in lower socio-economic strati. ‘Now we will look at this process in the…

2017 was the Leiden Asia Year. Leiden has had connections with Asia and built up extensive knowledge of the continent over many centuries. This Leiden-Asia link has been in the spotlight for the past year.

CML Researcher Merlijn van Weerd wins Parker / Gentry Award 2015 for Conservation Biology at Field Museum Chicago in recognition of his commitment to biodiversity conservation in the Philippines

As a Leiden University’s master’s student in Political Science you conduct independent research and report your findings to fellow academics and, who knows, to a larger audience. Your thesis is a showcase of your academic skills and personal interest, and perhaps even passion. Easier said than done,…

In Bronze Age Europe many bronze objects such as axes, swords and jewels were deliberately left at specific spots in the landscape. PhD research by Leiden archaeologist Marieke Visser shows that these practices were expressions of people’s relationship with the world around them. ‘It was a completely…

New sampling and analytical strategies give archaeologists a better understanding of the nutrition and survival of ancient populations. Publication in PLOS One.

The Leiden University Shii Studies Initiative (LUSSI) is hosting a two-day online conference on Islam and Evolution.

A deliberate attack on a tangible element of a culture, such as a temple, is often also an attack on intangible elements: the religion or religious customs. Equally, the intangible can be attacked without the involvement of the tangible, for example the brutal curtailment of rights. How are these reflected…

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) has awarded Veni funding to four Humanities researchers in at Leiden University. This award offers promising young scientists the opportunity to develop their own ideas over a period of three years.

A delegation from Leiden University will be visiting Mexico from 21 to 25 October. The visit aims to strengthen the ties between Mexican universities and Leiden University.

The spectacular “density” of artworks and architecture in Florence, a designated UNESCO World Heritage site (1982, 2015), reflects a nucleus of some of the most important collecting histories and museums in the world, ranging from the unparalleled Renaissance acquisitions of the Medici dynasty to the…

A group of 18 Leiden students and alumni are advising the University on diversity and inclusiveness. Portraits of 11 members of the Diversity Policy Feedback Group.

Corinne Hofman, Leiden Professor of the Archaeology of the Caribbean Region has been awarded the 2013 KNAW Merian Prize for women in science. Her aim with her research is to broaden the history of the colonisation of the Americas to include the perspective of the indigenous Indian population.

Leiden University will deepen its cooperation with knowledge institutions in Africa. During a trip to Ghana, a delegation spoke with several African knowledge institutions about intensifying their collaboration.

The Van Bergen Fund aims to promote contacts between Dutch and international students in order to achieve a better understanding of each other's cultures. At the Symposium for Diversity and Inclusion the two winners of the Van Bergen Award 2015 were announced.

Excursions to Leiden museums, a flown-in American professor and a collaboration with PhD students from Cambridge: Leiden PhD candidates in early modern art were in luck this summer. An award from the Camino Laurent van Vugt Fund allowed the LUCAS research institute to organise a special summer school…

With an ERC grant, anthropologist Jasmijn Rana will explore how outdoor groups address the lack of diversity and how ethno-racial inequalities are experienced and resisted in Europe's outdoor spaces.

Joanita Vroom's term as Head of the Department for World Archaeology runs out on March 1, 2023. Quentin Bourgeois will succeed her. In this interview, we look both back on the turbulent last three years and ahead at what the future has in store for the department. ‘I am very proud of the World Archaeology…

MIDDELBURG/GENEVA – The president of the United Nations Human Rights Council has invited the Zeeland Archives from the Netherlands, to Geneva on March 20th in order to present its project about the historical slave voyage aboard The Unity (1761-1763).

Leiden University is a member of the Una Europa European alliance. This partnership of 11 research-intensive universities is working to shape the university of the future.

World history is often framed in terms of flows of people and migration: humans coming ‘out of Africa’, the spread of farmers in the Holocene, Phoenician and Greek diasporas over the ancient Mediterranean, the colonization of the world by Europeans from the 16th century onwards. Together with his Exeter…

Three of our researchers have been awarded a certificate for receiving enough downloads to be in the top 10% of papers in 2022

Professor of Archaeometry Patrick Degryse analyses archaeological finds using techniques from chemistry, physics and biology. He will give his inaugural lecture on 19 February. He reflects on three interesting propositions from his lecture.

A young refugee who wants to give something back to the Netherlands; a Greek girl who wants to study in her mother's home country and, of course, a lot of Dutch bachelor's students. The visitors to the Leiden Master's Day on Friday 11 March were as diverse as the range of programmes offered.

Three international research projects involving Leiden University researchers will receive funding from the Una Europa university alliance.

Alex Brandsen and Wouter Verschoof-van der Vaart, PhD candidates in the Digital Archaeology research group and the Data Science Research Programme, have been awarded a 444 grant by Young Academy Leiden. They are going to use it to hold a session in Oxford on improving collaboration between researchers…

Olivier Nieuwenhuyse, member of the Faculty of Archaeology, was successful in receiving a grant from the Bijvanck Foundation for a first campaign of work at Tell Begum, northern Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan). A small international team directed by Olivier Nieuwenhuyse in a joint effort with the Directorate…

We are pleased to announce that on the 30th of September Dr. Andrea Waters-Rist from the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University (The Netherlands) will be launching a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) all about human osteoarchaeology!

On 24 April it was announced that, following his farewell, archaeologist Professor Maarten Jansen was appointed Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion. Unfortunately, due to the corona pandemic the actual ceremony will have to wait.

Dr Claire Achmad has taken up the role of Aotearoa New Zealand’s Chief Children’s Commissioner from 1 November 2023, for a term of five years.

Archaeologists from Leiden University and the municipality of Apeldoorn have excavated two prehistoric ancestral mounds dating from 300 years BC at the 'Echoput' royal estate. The findings were presented to Her Majesty Queen Beatrix on Friday 2 November.

Catia Antunes is one of the main partners in the ‘ForSeaDiscovery – Forest Resources for Iberian Empires: Ecology and Globalization in the Age of Discovery’ project that has been awarded the prestigious Marie Curie – ITN grant for Academic/Civil Society training, cooperation and outreach.

Our master’s alumna Marie Kolbenstetter was recently awarded a NWO subsidy for a PhD in the Humanities. With this funding she will be able to continue her master’s thesis research on the archaeology of Honduras at our Faculty. ‘I’m really happy to have my own project. This has been two years in the…

Manuscripts that look like a comic book, that's how you could describe the manuscripts of the Dongba people from China. The manuscripts are one of the last examples of a so-called pictographic script that can only be interpreted by Dongba priests, shamans, who have knowledge of the ancient Dongba cu…