Knowledge that benefits society is the domain of the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA). FGGA provides high-quality interdisciplinary education on and research into social and governance issues such as terrorism, organisation of public administration, climate change and economic crises.

The main aim of this project is to reveal and unravel the invisible histories of the UN, transcending the dominant Western perspective to recover the historical agency of Global South actors. The research will investigate how the UN has both facilitated and limited their role in shaping global order…

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…

Open Science Hub, a science education project coordinated by Leiden University, has won the 2021 Portuguese Medal of Scientific Merit for its contributions to community development through science education, research and innovation.

On Thursday, 11 May 2017, Nobuo Hayashi defended his PhD dissertation entitled “Military Necessity”. A brief summary provided below.

Understanding what motivates foreign fighters to go and fight in war zones and analysing their social environment offers a basis for preventing them from going.

Turnov, a town in Northern Bohemia, counting almost 15.000 inhabitants, is situated about 90 kilometers North-East of Prague, in the Semily district. It is the capital of the Bohemian Paradise.

Leiden University and VU Amsterdam are developing a joint research project for a digital platform on which you can compose and share storylines with the use of images. Such interactivity will make a boring high school history lesson much more exciting and personalized. Furthermore, it will stimulate…

On 27 January 1900 thirteen female students gathered and established the Leesgezelschap van Vrouwelijke Studenten te Leiden (reading association for female students in Leiden).

This minor critically examines the complexities of food sustainability through ecological, socio-economic, political, and cultural systems.

In the minor Global Affairs, students will explore the practical side of International Relations from a variety of perspectives, such as diplomacy, geo-economics, geopolitics, international organizations, international security, and global governance.

Lecture, Leiden Yemeni Studies Lecture Series

Leiden’s Institute for History has an exceptionally strong expertise in premodern European history in its global context, with specialists whose interests cover virtually the whole continent. We have a strong track record in leading larger research teams and work together with colleagues across Europe…

To promote a sustainable partnership with Asia, it is important to gain a better understanding of each other in economic, socio-cultural, historical, and legal terms. For decades, scholars from Leiden have made a significant contribution to the acquisition of knowledge about both the present and the…

Security is key to survival for any living organism: life is full of perils and threats, both physically, environmentally, and societally. Security challenges such as terrorism, natural disasters, and cybercrime rank among the most pressing issues of our time, affecting the security and safety of millions…

Amid rising polarisation and discrimination, lawyer and human rights activist Lilian Gonçalves-Ho Kang You wants to show in her Cleveringa Lecture on 26 November how dangerous exclusion is.

PhD defence

Holocaust scholars Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski will jointly hold the Cleveringa lecture on November 26. They were accused of defamation in Poland for a book they co-edited. How has this affected them? ‘This is an attempt to wear us down.’

Since it was announced that North Korean President Kim Jong-un is ready to launch an intercontinental nuclear missile, fear of a nuclear war is growing by the day. Professor and North Korea expert Remco Breuker talks about the increased international tensions and their consequences for his work.

During the week of 27 June - 2 July, the Institute of History was host to the first SHAFR Graduate Summer Institute held outside of the United States. The theme of the Institute was Culture, Propaganda and Intelligence in Cold War History.

Bandura Witharana defended his thesis on 27 September 2018

Jelena Vićić and Richard Harknett offer an analytical construct to better understand the mechanism by which cyber-enabled influence operations work

Studying change in the course of human history, in different places, through the lens of a diverse set of core themes; World History for International Studies offers readers a set of windows into different debates historians have been conducting.

On 9 April 2019, Yudan Tan defended her thesis 'The Rome Statute as Evidence of Customary International Law'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. W.A. Schabas.

The head of MCS is also Director of the Leiden-based LDE Centre for Global Heritage and Development, President of LeidenGlobal, and staff member of the Heritage and Museums department of the Faculty of Archaeology. Joint activities are being developed at the interface between heritage and museum stu…

It is widely known that conflict parties engage in ceasefires for a variety of reasons, but how do these reasons relate to the military and political aspirations of conflict party leaders?

Mr. Jan van den Berg defended his thesis on 8 November 2018

GLOBALINT is a pioneering study of intelligence in the Global South. It asks ‘how do (un)democratic shifts in political governance impact intelligence services in contexts of violent conflict?

On 26 November 1940 Rudolph Pabus Cleveringa (1894-1980) gave his now famous protest speech.

In the wake of controversial disclosures of classified government information by WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden, questions about the democratic status of secret uses of political power are rarely far from the headlines. Despite an increase in initiatives aimed at enhancing government transparency – such…

The aim of the competition is to prolong the legacy of Professor Benjamin Marius Telders, who became a professor of international law at Leiden University in 1937.

This project explores the community of engineers in Sri Lanka and their role with regard to three domains of inquiry.

Religion, Class, and the Postwar Development of the Dutch Welfare State. Dennie Oude Nijhuis.

Ineke Smit defended her thesis on 17 September 2019

Why does the history of dogmatism deserve our attention? This open access book analyses uses of the term, following dogmatism from Victorian Britain to Cold War America, examining why it came to be regarded as a vice, and how understandings of its meaning have evolved.

On 29 april 2020, Beth Van Schaack defended her thesis 'Imagining Justice for Syria: Water Always Finds Its Way'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. C. Stahn.

How can party bans be justified? Which parties were banned in post-war Europe – and why? Do militant democracy instruments work? Is an international militant democracy concept in the making?

Why is there no Northeast Asian security architecture? Assessing the strategic impediments to a stable East Asia. In this article, published in 'The Pacific Review', the authors Wang (Peking University) en Stevens (Leiden University) discuss the reasons why.

This subproject examines how memories of flight and persecution shaped new social and religious identities in the Netherlands.

While Nietzsche's works and ideas are relevant across the many branches of philosophy, the themes of contest and conflict have been mostly overlooked. Conflict and Contest in Nietzsche's Philosophy redresses this situation, arguing for the importance of these issues throughout Nietzsche's work.

Documenting and describing languages of the world.

This study by artist Jonas Staal explores the development of propaganda art from the 20th to the 21st century.

The Central Asia Initiative in Leiden was launched by the Leiden research area Asia Modernities and Traditions (AMT) in February 2015.

Diede Farhosh-van Loon defended her thesis on 18 October 2016

This paper aims to understand the most common underlying problems causing strategic surprise in the context of the European Union.