Research into our history of colonialism and slavery, heart-to-heart conversations at a Keti Koti table, exhibitions, lectures and podcasts that establish the link between present and past. Staff and students participated in the national Slavery Memorial Year in many different ways. What have we learned…

Armed with sunglasses, a thick layer of sunscreen and several bottles of water, over 3,300 students have arrived in Leiden for their introduction week. The start of the 55th EL CID happened to be on the hottest day of the year.

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.

Senior lecturer Rick Honings has been appointed Scaliger professor with effect from 1 July 2020. In the coming years his focus will be on promoting teaching and research on the Special Collections of the Leiden University Library. Honings succeeds book historian Erik Kwakkel, who held this chair until…

Finding solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the not-inconsiderable task of the new Peace Academy in The Hague. Professor Maurits Berger and twelve students from different conflict zones are starting a creative thinking process that aims to discover the basic conditions for peace in the…

Leiden University is celebrating its 450th anniversary in 2025 with a feast for the eyes, ears and spirit. The anniversary year opens with an extra special Dies Natalis on 7 February. Highlights includes an alumni festival, three exhibitions and a canal concert.

In 2018, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) has worked on a project in which all researchers affiliated with Leiden University were encouraged to create an Open Researcher and Contributor Identifier (ORCID) for themselves. ORCID is an international system for the persistent and unique identification…

Leiden health psychologist Liesbeth Van Vliet receives recognition for her research on doctor-patient communication and its influence on quality of healthcare. Van Vliet has been awarded one of four Heineken Young Scientists Award 2022 for promising young researchers working in the Netherlands.

Quietly read a book in our new reading nook, listen to interesting and bizarre stories set in early twentieth-century Leiden, walk past literary locations in Leiden and watch the best film adapted from a Leiden novel as decided on by you. April is Literary Leiden month! A month in which we pay special…

Try to resolve the nitrogen problem, go on a regeneration journey or take part in psychological research: discover this and more at the new and improved 3 October University, ‘WetenschapsWarenMarkt’.

The Dual PhD centre has been granted an ICTO-grant for the development of a digital training programme for dual PhD’s.

The exhibition Minerva’s Metamorphoses organized by Leiden University Libraries (UBL) celebrates the University’s fascinating history. The 444th anniversary of Leiden University will be highlighted by contemporary photographs and historical documents from UBL’s collections. The exhibition is on view…

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) signed the manifesto of the Dutch Digital Heritage Network (NDE) this November, during Digital Heritage Month, thereby joining the network. The manifesto calls on archives, libraries, museums, and other cultural institutions to make their digital collections more visible,…

From March 1, Alenka Prinčič will be the new Head of the Centre for Digital Scholarship (CDS) at Leiden University Libraries. Her expertise in the areas of Research Support, Research Infrastructures and Open Publishing as well as her longstanding experience as a manager are excellent starting points…

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) would like to invite you for the symposium Rediscovered: new technologies on historical artifacts on Friday 16 November, from 10.00-18.00. The symposium will be held in the Vossius room of the UBL at Witte Singel 27.

The new Japanese Ambassador, Michii Rokuichiro, visited Leiden University on 2 March.

Every year on 26 November Leiden University commemorates the protest speech given by Professor Cleveringa against the Nazis. At least 663 students, staff and alumni of the University lost their lives during the Second World War, yet little was known about these victims. PhD candidate Adriënne Baars…

In this FAQ we try to answer a selection of the most important questions on research data management that we compiled over the last 5 years.

A (digital) course reserve shelf offers the possibility to set library materials for a designated period aside.

Overview of databases, reference works and websites for research in Art & Art History

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…

Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker will head a delegation that is visiting Indonesia at the end of June. The visit is to celebrate the 50th anniversary of ‘Leiden’ institute KITLV-Jakarta. What does this institute do and why is Indonesia important to the University?

As people spend ever more time in cyberspace, so do criminals. The more reliant we become on digital technology, the more vulnerable we are to hackers, surveillance, and cybercrime. The past decade has made clear that cybercrime does not only affect individuals and organizations, but that nation states,…

Leiden University has an active open science community. Open science means transparency in all phases of research by precisely documenting every step of the way and making this publicly available. ‘It’s time to be open,’ say psychologists Anna van ’t Veer and Zsuzsika Sjoerds. There is increasing awareness…

Overview of databases, reference works and websites in western languages for research in Comparative Philosophy

LEGO creations, a clothesline of visions and a journey into the past and the future: just some of the highlights of Uni-vision day, where creatives developed their vision of the future of study.

On Thursday, May 16, Leiden University Libraries is organizing a workshop on early photography of the Middle East. In the workshop, curator Maartje van den Heuvel shows photos of three adventurous Dutch nineteenth-century travel and photography pioneers. They created beautiful photos and photo albums…

Ominous witches, gruesome monsters, and hideous freaks: from Saturday 15 June, Kunsthal Rotterdam will be putting the spotlight on the shady depths of human imagination in the exhibition Hello darkness, my old friend. Seventy works on paper from the collection of the Leiden University Libraries confront…

The Leiden Law Blog is celebrating its first anniversary. The blog attracts many visitors and scores well in Google. Tips for bloggers: link to previous blogs, post them on social media and respond to comments.

To celebrate the formal launch of the Leiden Chinese Queer Collection (LCQC, 莱顿华语酷儿文献收藏), promote Chinese queer studies scholarship, and raise the visibility of Chinese queer history and culture, the LCQC steering committee will hold a workshop on 24-25 July 2025, under the aegis of the Leiden University…

Manuscripts that look like a comic book, that's how you could describe the manuscripts of the Dongba people from China. The manuscripts are one of the last examples of a so-called pictographic script that can only be interpreted by Dongba priests, shamans, who have knowledge of the ancient Dongba cu…

As of February 1st, 2018, Sarah de Rijcke has been appointed as Professor of Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, especially Science and Evaluation Studies, at Leiden University. The chair is located at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS).

Leiden University has awarded its prestigious University Medal to Emeritus Professor Lex van der Eb. As a pioneer in genetics and molecular biology, he received this honour for his services to science and his key role in the development of the Leiden Bio Science Park (LBSP).

The Epic of Gilgamesh was a lifelong inspiration to artist Harry van Kruiningen. This tale from Mesopotamia about the adventures of Gilgamesh, the legendary king of Uruk, and his friend Enkidu is one of the oldest surviving epics in world literature. Despite its almost 4,000 year age, it still captures…

On the initiative of Leiden Law School’s Art Committee, the festive opening of the photo exhibition of the Leiden Amateur Photographic Society (LAFV) took place on Friday 20 May 2022 in the C corridor of the Kamerlingh Onnes Building.

The Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) organizes the ISGA Conference ‘Who determines the security (research) agenda’ on 9 - 10 November 2016 in The Hague, the Netherlands.

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.

Hundreds of beautiful and timeless photos by Emmy Andriesse, one of the most important Dutch photographers of the twentieth century, are now freely accessible for everyone and can be used for research, education or other purposes. Large parts of Andriesse's oeuvre are already available online via Digital…

This year the Scaliger Institute received a record number of applications from domestic and foreign submitters for a fellowship to consult and research material in the Special Collections of the University Libraries. With the financial support of a number of companies and private foundations, the UBL…

Jacques J. M. van Gent (8 June 1932 - 26 March 2021) was director of Leiden University Library from 1983 to 1993. He was librarian in a time of transition and, as director, was able to benefit from the new library building on the Witte Singel. Van Gent was a very different kind of manager from his predecessor,…

Leiden University has adopted a new Open Access policy that will easily allow Leiden researchers to accomplish 100% Open Access of peer reviewed articles. Based on the principles of Article 25fa of the Copyright Act (the Taverne amendment), authors can use LUCRIS and the Leiden Repository to make the…

The Dutch universities are conducting a joint campaign to promote open access: free access to academic and scientific publications. Many Leiden researchers support open access. Given that it involves a shift in the financing from the reader to the author, they point out the need for effective agreements…

An evening program in the University Library and Middle Eastern Library in Leiden for everyone who has something to do with the Middle East; from Tajikistan to the Mahreb and from Istanbul to Sanaa. View the oldest books and clay tablets from the collection and listen to the most fascinating stories…

There is a reasonable chance that you came to this reading list through a social medium. Now it's our job to keep your attention. We are going to do our best. There are so many distractions; from notifications on your phone, to another screen near you, that may also be screaming for attention. Every…

The democratic legal order can only function optimally if there is sufficient trust between citizens and government. Citizens must be able to trust that rules and procedures are observed and that legal protection is guaranteed for everyone at all times and everywhere. This trust has been seriously damaged…

The Caribbean as we know it today is fundamentally a product of colonial activity and globalisation. Practically everyone that inhabits the Caribbean has ancestors from different continents due to colonial activity, which profoundly affects the area to this day. Caribbean writers, both in the Caribbean…

Persian stories with beautiful miniatures, letters on papyrus from Egyptian traders and medicinal manuscripts translated from Greek and edited in Arabic. Studium Generale organizes a lecture series on the world-famous manuscripts from the Middle East collection of Leiden University Libraries (UBL).…

In November, the Dutch will elect a new parliament. Not all eligible citizens will go out and vote, however. How can this be explained, and how big of a problem is it? International research into voter turnout can shed new light on this issue – and offer possible solutions.

This Subject Guide is designed to support students of Korean studies at Leiden University in their research process. For every step of the research process, this guide introduces a number of tips and recommended resources. You can find several sub-guides and contacts in the 'quick links' in the tab…

Overview of databases, reference works and websites for research in Ancient Near East Studies. Last update: October 2020