LUCSoR has chairs in Comparative Religion, Islam in the West, Christianity, and Judaism. Main areas of expertise include ancient Mesopotamian religions, the Enlightenment, Islam in the West, and new spiritual movements.

An assessment of Libyan legislation

Nanodiscs are small, disc-shaped structures designed to mimic biological cell membranes, composed of a lipid bilayer stabilized by scaffold proteins. Membrane proteins play crucial roles in essential processes such as nutrient and waste transport, molecular recognition, and cell signalling, making them…

The Graduate School of Governance and Global Affairs offers PhD programmes that address the pressing societal challenges of our time.

On 20 September 2023 Mark van de Water successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The HJD Book Award is given to the author(s) of the book that best advances the theoretical and/or empirical study of diplomacy.

Dr. at Max Planck Institute for chemical Ecology, Jena - Germany

On the 27th of February, Marta Morgado successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Marta on this achievement!

Dutch knowledge institutions are taking steps to recognise and reward open science. On 13 December, the Open Science NL Steering Board approved a total of 1.2 million euros in grants to 23 institutions. The Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) leads the national coordination of the local…

This editorial to RHCPP discusses how COVID-19 can be seen as a 'creeping crisis' according to the authors of its lead article (Boin et al, 2020) and how resilience may depend on the real heroes behind the scenes of response to disaster and adversity.

Kohei Suzuki, Assistant Professor at Institute of Public Administration, and two other authors researched the topic of innovation by governments in response to expected population decline.

The territories that would make up what is today the Republic of Zambia officially became British in 1891. However, this did not equate to an on-the-ground presence of colonial authority capable of affecting the destiny and daily lives of people.

The Supplementa series of BABESCH is designed as a platform for thematic publications, in juxtaposition to the annual and varied mix of contributions offered by the journal itself. The thematic publications will include proceedings of colloquia, collections of particular studies by one or more authors,…

Investigating specific language and speech behaviour of people.

On the 27th of June, Timothy Mac Hadjah successfully defended a doctoral thesis. Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Timothy on this achievement!

Don Scott De Amicis will give the sixth Hazelhoff Guest Lecture on international development finance: challenges and opportunities.

How did our academic community position itself in relation to a system that deprived people of their freedom? What role did the university, as an educational institution, play with regard to colonialism and the system of slavery? How can we best engage with and manage our special collections?

On Wednesday, 14 May 2025, Catherine O'Regan will deliver the annual Van Vollenhoven Lecture

Visiting Researchers at the Leiden University Institute for History

Building cultures of legality: lawmaking and anxiety in the office of the Governor General.

PACES is an innovative, inter-disciplinary and multi-level research project that asks, How do changes in society, individual life experiences and migration policy shape decisions to stay or to migrate over time and across countries? And how can this knowledge inform future migration policies and gov…

The labour market has seen significant changes in recent decades, not least in terms of greater flexibility and digitisation. Leiden University is keen to prepare students for a working life in which flexibility, resilience and adaptability will be essential qualities. The university’s vision on teaching…

This project aims at providing a broad perspective of the state of Science Technology and Innovation (STI) in Africa with a focus on global funding flows, in order to inform research funders in the continent, in particular those participating in the Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI). The project…

The Modern Devotion: pone of the most influential religious initiatives in the late medieval Low Countries.

The Astronomy and Instrumentation specialisation consists of 120 European Credit Transfer System (EC) points and includes highly specialized instrumentation courses, a selection of advanced electives and two research projects.

The endophytic microbiota is a community of various microorganisms that reside in plant tissue. These microbes are known to promote plant health and resilience, and their members do not simply exist side by side.

The Master’s in Health, Ageing and Society gives you the insight, knowledge and skills to change care for older people. This change is needed in order to guarantee care for senior citizens in the future, but also offers solutions for growing old more happily and with more vitality.

The master's specialisation Molecular, Cellular and Organismal Biology at Leiden University examines the molecular mechanisms underlying health and disease and how cells and organisms adapt to environmental factors.

Situated at the crossroads of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, the Spanish Philippines offer historians an intriguing middle ground of connected histories that raises fundamental new questions about conventional ethnic, regional and religious identities.

Archaeological and Anthropological perspectives

On 23 February 2022, Cale Davis defended the thesis 'Prosecutorial Discretion in International Criminal Justice'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. C. Stahn en Dr. J.C. Powderly.

The Astronomy and Data Science specialisation consists of 120 European Credit Transfer System (EC) points and includes mandatory courses in Computer Sciences, a selection of electives in Astronomy and two research projects.

This book explores the return of six outstanding Kandyan artefacts to Sri Lanka by the Dutch government in 2023. It captures numerous reflections of the international interdisciplinary research team that investigated the provenance of these artifacts and the remarkable layered history that the research…

In the master’s specialisation Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology at Leiden University students are trained by experts in the areas of molecular biology, microbiology, plant genetics, cellular imaging, animal disease models, and various –omics technologies and the corresponding bioinformatics.

The Astronomy and Science Based Business specialisation consists of 120 European Credit Transfer System (EC) points and includes a one-year astronomy component (60 - 80 EC) and a business component in the second year (40 - 60 EC).

Healthcare Information Systems (HIS) are essential for modern healthcare delivery, yet their development faces significant challenges including heterogeneous data formats, regulatory compliance, and the growing demand for AI-driven decision support.

Knowledge and culture subproject 2:

Leila Zerrougui (born in Algeria 1956) is a legal expert on human rights, justice, and rule of law. She is the current Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO). Before she was Special Representative…

The Dutch police force has been deliberately storing personal data relating to millions of Dutch people for many years now. In doing so, the institution has been knowingly breaking the law. Bart Schermer, Professor of Law and Digital Technology expressed his concerns on Follow the Money – a platform…

How do parents communicate anxiety to their child via body language and words? Psychologist Cosima Nimphy studied this question for her PhD research. Experiments show that children of anxious parents are not more sensitive to their parents’ signs of anxiety.

In this PhD-thesis several new and existing data science application are described that are particularly focused on applications for tax administrations.

This dissertation explores how Large Language Models (LLMs) can effectively and responsibly contribute to complex decision-making processes. By combining AI and human intelligence, Hybrid Intelligence (HI) emerges, allowing the strengths of both humans and machines to be utilized.

The research conducted at the Health, Medical and Neuropsychology unit investigates the psychological factors of health and disease, which allows for the development of innovative treatments.

Assistant Professor Juan Masullo of the Institute of Political Science has been awarded the 2025 Alexander George Best Article Award for his work on interviews and process tracing.

We explored the Universe using weak gravitational lensing, a phenomenon that occurs when light from distant galaxies is bent by the gravitational fields of closer cosmic objects, much like how a lens distorts light.