How do students start asking more questions on a museum visit? Let them free an Egyptian princess from a sarcophagus! In the minor Living Education Lab, students from TU Delft, Leiden University and Erasmus University Rotterdam designed an escaperoom.

Higher design and engineering educators have different views on what a new or renewed curriculum should entail, content-wise as well as pedagogically. This research aims to describe how these ‘curriculum perspective perceptions’ influence working definitions, end goal formulation, and the scope of results…

‘Fernweh: Crossing borders and connecting people in archaeological heritage management ’

PhD candidate Alex Brandsen, working in the Digital Archaeology research group has recently received a grant from the Leiden University Centre for Digital Humanities. This grant will be used to further develop and improve AGNES, the search engine for excavation reports that Brandsen is building.

As Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS-KNAW) fellow, Tesse Stek will explore the intricate relationship between the history of ideas about Roman imperialism and contemporary archaeological interpretation.

This doctoral thesis comprises four studies on the content and structure of physics teachers’ belief systems about teaching and learning physics in secondary education in the Netherlands.

Teachers of English as a foreign language in China and the Netherlands have different notions of themselves as teachers in relation to cultures associated with the English language.

Many students have difficulties to read and give meaning to algebraic formulas. In this study it is explored whether graphing formulas with pen and paper will improve students’ability to reason with algebraic formulas.

Marja Verstelle has received the SURF Education Award 2020. This prize is awarded each year, to five education professionals who have contributed to innovation in education, both within the Netherlands and beyond.

A number of calls for proposals have been launched to finance innovative educational projects. An overview is given below.

The Centre for Innovation has launched a new podcast series called What if Education… In each episode, the host Monika Theron invites students, teachers and experts to think differently about education.

An archaeologist as a modern-day shaman. An unexpected comparison Professor by Special Appointment of Public Archaeology Luc Amkreutz will make in his inaugural lecture.

For the past 2 years, Dr Letty ten Harkel has been jointly running an excavation project of a suspected Roman villa site on the Balearic island of Mallorca with colleagues Dr Antoni Puig Palerm and Ritchie Kolvers, MA. The project was recently awarded a LUF Chastelain-Nobach fund to explore the extend…

In the largest study of ancient DNA ever conducted, an international team of scientists has revealed the complex story behind one of the defining periods in European prehistory. The study is published this week in the journal Nature.

School pupils are all different, which is why there is differentiation in our education system. This can be seen in pre-university education and lower vocational schools, and also takes the form of ability groups in junior schools. But according to Professor by Special Appointment Eddie Denessen, differentiation…

On 26 and 27 September 2016, the Faculty of Archaeology of Leiden University hosted the closing symposium of the HERA-CARIB project “Caribbean Connections: Cultural encounters in a New World setting”.

Matthijs van Leeuwen and Frank Takes have been appointed directors of education at LIACS as of 1 September. They will succeed Marcello Bonsangue, who has held the position since 2016. Van Leeuwen and Takes have been appointed for a period of four years.

The eight ambitions of Leiden University's vision on education - Learning@LeidenUniversity - were the key theme of the packed Education Festival on 19 June. More than 200 lecturers and students came to PLNT, Leiden's innovation hotspot, for inspiration and best practices in the field of educational…

Study information

Conference

On Sunday August 19, the National Geographic channel programme 'Drain the Oceans' will focus on Martijn Manders' excavation of the Dutch VOC ship De Rooswijk.

With a full auditorium at the university's Wijnhaven campus, an extensive programme, inspiring speakers and visitors from a wide range of disciplines, all the ingredients were in place for a successful second edition of the Nacht van de Digitale Veiligheid of Digital Security on 26 May 2026.

Assistant professor and dual PhD candidate, Pieter Slaman writes in Binnenlands Bestuur about the fact that the German occupier lengthened the period of mandatory education in The Netherlands.

Dr. Willy de Heer defended her PhD Thesis

Tinh Le (PhD at ICLON) researched the impact of confucian culture and socialist beliefs on stakeholders' beliefs about democratic education and its implementation in Vietnamese secondary schools. Defence on 29 November.

More than 100 teachers, educators and policymakers from 25 countries gathered in Leiden from 18 October for the Space Education International Workshop. Their goal is to inspire children using astronomy and space sciences.

In the article “Neanderthals and Us: We’re More Alike Than Once Thought”, we are reminded that many negative traits, from unintelligent to unsophisticated, have long been attributed to Neanderthals in popular culture. However, recent studies bring to light an ever-increasing amount of evidence contradicting…

Two Leiden students stand a chance of winning the ECHO Award for Higher Education. Deniz Rana Kuseyri (Rana for short) and Ruşen Koç are two of the six finalists for this annual national prize that is awarded to students who promote diversity and inclusion in their own discipline.

Dr Alex Geurds was elected as a Fellow for the Society of Antiquaries, a prestigious and old educational charity based in London. Established in 1707, the society aims at the encouragement and advancement of the study and knowledge of the antiquities.

Princeton University has officially launched its website, MAFE: Middle Ages for Educators. MAFE is aimed at university and secondary students and educators and, more broadly, at anyone who is interested in studying, teaching, or learning more about Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Study information

Mr. J. Sun defended his thesis on 21 March 2018.

In this study, Bibi van den Berg and Sanneke Kuipers from ISGA, explore the ways in which cyber-related incidents may lead to crises

How does the development of digital technologies impact society, and law/regulation within that society?

The authors systematically search and review relevant definitions of Security by Design (SbD) in comparison with Privacy by Design (PbD).

Governing Cyberspace: Behavior, Power and Diplomacy is based on a selection of papers presented during The Hague Program for Cyber Norms' inaugural conference Novel Horizons: Responsible Behaviour in Cyberspace from 5-7 November 2018 in The Hague. The volume is edited by Dennis Broeders and Bibi van…

Cyber-attacks, privacy-related problems or failures in functioning: many technologies that are used every day have security issues that are solved when the software is already in use. An interdisciplinary project, in which Olga Gadyatskaya, Harry Wijshoff, Alex Uta and Kristian Rietveld from the Leiden…

This research evaluates the Youth Act. It will provide an overview of how the transition takes place, whether the transformation process develops in the right direction and whether the legal safeguards are functioning properly.

The project contends that in Late Antiquity (c. 300-500 AD) both the figure of Christ and those of Pythagoras and Socrates underwent a parallel process of metamorphosis facilitated not least through an intellectual exchange between Christian theologians and Neoplatonic philosophers. From Iamblichus…

Do you have any questions about the Industrial Ecology master’s programme? Please contact us! It is also possible to schedule a call with our study advisors or one of our students. Moreover, we have online Walk-In hours every third Friday of the month.

New archaeological research into grave goods and skeletal material from the oldest grave field in the Netherlands shows that male-female roles 7,000 words ago were less traditional than was thought. The research was conducted by a multidisciplinary team of researchers led by Archol, the National Museum…

Heritage expert Monique van den Dries has a long history with our Faculty. She did her studies and PhD in Leiden, and before returning to academia in 2008, she worked in heritage management for nearly 15 years. This has, given her a unique insight in the world outside of academia. ‘I want to literally…

Everything around us is in motion. Students, the University, technology, society, the labour market and the world. These developments provide an impetus to experiment with new forms of education. This article samples a small selection of the many dozens of innovative educational projects. What is striking…

Archaeologist Eduardo Herrera Malatesta reflects on the unfamiliarity with the pre-Columbian past that he encountered during fieldwork in the Montecristi province in the Dominican Republic.

The paleo diet: eating like people in the Stone Age did, because it is supposed to be healthier. But how accurate are the recipes in this diet?

In the spring of 2024 the Faculty of Archaeology welcomed a new postdoc. Dr Adam Benfer, originally from the United States, occupies a double position as a researcher in the project of Alex Geurds and as the Faculty’s Data Steward. ‘It is pretty much what the title says: I steward data. Essentially,…