Extended Reality (XR) encompasses augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality, and is reshaping how users, scholars, and teachers engage with the world. One notable application is the Mixtec skull from Museum Volkenkunde in Liselore Tissen’s research (LUCDH Small Grant), which showcases…

What does academic freedom mean? And how do we give shape to it in Leiden? The Academic Freedom Core Team considered these questions and presented its final report on 17 June.

Wearing All Stars and ‘just’ a pair of jeans, with a backpack slung over his shoulder. It was an informal Friday afternoon with Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General, at Wijnhaven. Perched on a desk, he took questions from students in the audience.

Leiden University has secured an impressive 12 European exchange grants. This is good news for students, lecturers and researchers from home and abroad.

Spui Campus, Leiden University’s fourth location in The Hague, will soon open its doors. The former V&D department store’s transformation into a university campus is becoming more visible by the week. Removal vans will soon be driving back and forth to move all the furniture there in time. The first…

What effect do trends in the art world have on the formation of museum collections? University lecturer Martin Berger wants to answer that question in his research within the Museums, Collections and Society project, which asks ethical questions about the origin of collections.

On 23-34 May 2024, the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies and the Research Group ‘Museums, Collections and Society’ will hold an interdisciplinary symposium on ‘Changing Approaches Towards Restitution and Return of Colonial Heritage’. One of the shortcomings of existing approaches to restitution…

Cleveringa Lecture

On 8 March, International Women’s Day, equal opportunities for women worldwide, empowerment, and gender equality take centre stage. For years, the role of women in the past has been nearly invisible. Four archaeologists reflect on this inequality of focus, from hunter-gatherers in the palaeolithic to…

The English-language interdisciplinary minor ‘AI and Society’ explores the role of artificial intelligence in our society. The interdisciplinary nature of the minor is proving beneficiary for students and lecturers alike. We sit in during a class.

We aim to provide a venue, in the form of an unconference, where archaeologists with a (budding) passion for Open Science can meet to exchange ideas and experiences. During the unconference we also hope to improve awareness of Open Science in archaeology, as well as to help people convert awareness…

In the course 'From Ceramics to Plastics: The Mediterranean in 12 objects' students were taught to work with 3D scanning technologies. One of the underlying reasons to introduce students to this technology was to teach them to reproduce objects. ‘More and more archaeological information is stored in…

Without academic freedom, we might not have antibiotics, nor a deep understanding of human behaviour. Literary criticism, climate models, and ecological restoration would be severely limited; just like ethical reflection on artificial intelligence, justice, trauma, parenting, faith and hope. All these…

In this series the Vice-Dean and portfolio holder of education in the board of the Faculty of Archaeology will reflect on the state of education. Posts can range from shedding light on current national shifts in the university landscape to arguments as to why it’s important to be timely with designing…

In this series the Vice-Dean and portfolio holder of education in the board of the Faculty of Archaeology will reflect on the state of education. Posts can range from shedding light on current national shifts in the university landscape to arguments as to why it’s important to be timely with designing…

The Great Book Robbery is a powerful and poignant chronicle of cultural destruction. The documentary tells the story of the 70,000 Palestinian books that were looted by the newly formed State of Israel in 1948. After the screening there will be a panel on book ownership, the role of books as cultural…

End of Year Event

Study support

GTGC-SAILS Joint Event on AI Governance This special seminar brings together Leiden’s interdisciplinary programmes Global Transformations and Governance Challenges and Society, Artificial Intelligence and Life Sciences (SAILS). Artificial intelligence is rapidly evolving, with far-reaching…