In January 2014, the research project The Promise of Organization hosted a fruitful three-day conference:

Nearly eight decades after the liberation of Auschwitz, we continue to learn more about how the Holocaust “happened” in central and eastern Europe. In Prof. dr. Sarah Cramsey’s History MA Research Seminar “New Approaches to the Holocaust in Central and Eastern Europe,” a dozen Leiden students read what…

The history of sign languages of deaf people is severely understudied. The historical linguistics of sign languages offers a fundamentally new perspective on the history of human languages. This project addresses the dearth of knowledge about historical sign language linguistics through a large-scale…

Investigating the intercultural connections that shaped practices of knowledge production in colonial Dutch Brazil.

If idioms employed in codes of conduct could be as idiosyncratic as examples suggest, then to what extent did early modern language of vice, too, persist in this genre?

In high school, Tim van Erven read about an artificially intelligent algorithm that could solve mazes. From that moment on, he was sold: ‘There’s something magical about algorithms. With a list of fixed rules you can make them learn the most diverse things.’ This year, he won a Vidi grant, which he…

How did the medieval manuscript develop as a physical object during the Twelfth Century Renaissance and what do these changes tell us about the intellectual culture of the period?

How can we understand the material instability of photographic (mixed media) artworks (1960s - present) from an integrated approach of Art History, Conservation Science and Chemistry in order to preserve these works for the future?

This book explores the Indian tradition of liberalism through a critical intellectual biography of Valangaiman Sankaranarayana Srinivasa Sastri (1869–1946).

This project looks at the ways in which youth in southern Nigeria navigate their lives in a context of experiencing long-term socioeconomic uncertainty and political insecurity (duress).

How did “free agents” (entrepreneurs operating outside of the myriad of interests of the centralized, state-sponsored monopolies) in Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire react to the creation of colonial monopolies (royal monopolies and chartered companies) by the central states in the Early Modern…

Professor Peter Bisschop, lecturer in Sanskrit and Ancient Cultures of South Asia, has been awarded a grant by the NWO Free Competition to fund his research into the rapid growth of Saivism in the sixth and seventh centuries in South and Southeast Asia. The research project, entitled ‘From Universe…

Professor Peter Bisschop, lecturer in Sanskrit and Ancient Cultures of South Asia, has been awarded a grant by the NWO Free Competition to fund his research into the rapid growth of Saivism in the sixth and seventh centuries in South and Southeast Asia. The research project, entitled ‘From Universe…

How did changes in the composition and exploitation of princely domains in various principalities of the Low Countries influence the development of ‘modern’ public finance systems, including the notion of public debt?

Promotor: F.J. van Lunteren, E. Jorin

How did caretakers rooted in families, communities and societies nurture very young children across historical time? And, how have care practices changed across different peoples, states and political economies in the dynamic 20th century?

This article assesses Russian rhetoric toward Ukraine from 2004 to 2019 by analyzing statements by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Material Culture, Settlements, and Landscapes from the Mediterranean to Western Asia

Dutch Title:

Making extensive use of primary source materials this study contributes to existing scholarship in the field of eighteenth-century grammars and grammarians by providing an in-depth study of Ash’s Grammatical Institutes and its influence on other popular grammars for children.

This master’s programme combines Physics with Data Science. You will learn how physics has its own tricks to deal with big data and how techniques from machine learning and deep learning can be applied to classical and quantum data. The first focus of attention is on classical data, including data mining,…

At Leiden University, researchers from all disciplines work together to find answers and design innovations in the field of artificial intelligence.

The Faculty of Science

In this project diverse aspects of the duchesses’ roles in the complex and dynamic relations between town and crown are studied on the basis of systematic research in the account books of four cities (Ghent, Bruges, Leuven and Mechelen) in the Burgundian Netherlands (ca. 1430-1503).

By making two final network connections and entering a command, Martijn Ridderbos (Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board) , Geert de Snoo (Dean of the Faculty of Science) and Bart Hoogervorst (Head of Department Operations ICT Shared Service Centre) ceremonially booted up the university’s latest supercomputer,…

PhD Research Projects at LUCDH and Affiliated Faculties

Despite the wealth of historical literature on the Second World War, the subject of religion and churches in occupied Europe has been undervalued.

A unique multicenter study, including about 3,500 youth between 10 and 25 years old from across the globe, shows that artificial intelligence - specifically machine learning - is able to identify individuals with anxiety disorders based on their unique brain structure.

The recently promoted Hao Wang from the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science teaches computer programmes how to solve real-world problems. His goal is to make the process of problem-solving more efficient. On 1 November, he obtained his doctorate with the predicate cum laude. ‘I hope to solve…

A Leiden-Delft-Erasmus research team has been awarded a LDE Global Support Grant to develop reusable algorithms in the remote detection of non-orthogonal architectural features, taking place in the archaeological context of the northern extremities of the Andean, part of the Istmo-Colombian Area.

The Dutch and English East India Companies were formidable organizations that were gifted with expansive powers that allowed them to conduct diplomacy, wage war and seize territorial possessions. But they did not move into an empty arena in which they were free to deploy these powers without resista…

PhD defence

By making smart use of available data, the health and care of people can be substantially improved. Marco Spruit wants to use language and machine learning in the coming years to identify and solve the biggest care issues in the region of The Hague. He has been appointed Professor of Advanced Data Science…

Collecting data in sports increased in importance the last few years.

Quantum computing is a novel paradigm for computation, which is nearing real-world impact with the coming generation of limited, but nonetheless powerful quantum devices.

This project will transform OpenML, a platform for sharing and creating datasets and AI models transparently and collaboratively, into a next-generation open science infrastructure.

This project investigates how the first generation of Dutch printed books (the incunabula, 1473-1501) affected late medieval spirituality, religious practice and visual culture in the Low Countries.

Professor Herman Paul has been appointed Scientific Director of the Institute of History from 1 February 2025. ‘Especially in these times, transparency is essential.’

This subproject of 'From Homo Economicus to Political Animal' analyzes Greek economic thinking of the Hellenistic period.

Combining cutting-edge quantitative approaches with more traditional book history approaches, this new book offers the first history of medieval manuscript destruction in England from the medieval period to the present.

Micro-credentials make education for professionals even more accessible. If you follow a module of 3 to 30 EC (European Credits), you receive a micro credential after completing the education program. This digital certificate is recognized by 22 universities of applied sciences and 12 universities.

Professor Eric Storm was recently reviewed in the Indonesian newspaper Merdika, which praised his innovative approach to historical analysis and his relevance in today’s global discourse.

Prof.dr. Henk te Velde is appointed as the new President of the Association for Political History.

History and Religious Studies in Leiden rank # 17 and #32 in the QS World University Rankings by Subject. With this, History in Leiden ranks as the best in The Netherlands and Religious Studies ranks as second best.

PhD defence

Last year, LUCSoR welcomed two new Ph.D. students from Iran: Kiyan Foroutan from Ahvaz and Amir Ardalan Emami from Tehran. Kiyan works on a project on the role of the family in medieval and early modern Zoroastrianism in India and Iran (15th-18th centuries). Ardalan works on a much earlier period, the…