As a former (PhD) student of the Faculty of Archaeology, your relationship with the Faculty doesn’t end when you graduate. You will join an international community of Archaeology Alumni, working in a wide range of careers including academia, commercial archaeology, heritage policy, museums, the media,…

Entry requirements for students with a degree from a Dutch University of Applied Sciences (HBO)

Improving health, enhancing well-being and reducing health disparities across society.

Clinical psychology is a discipline concerned with the application of psychological science to the assessment and treatment of mental disorders.

Understanding the formation and preservation of Pleistocene fire traces through laboratory-based experimental research

Acta Politica is the official journal of the Dutch Political Science Association.

Security and Legitimacy is one of the three organisational clusters of the Institute of Political Science.

How was the racial landscape of citizenship and democracy in antebellum America characterized, and how did free Black populations in various states navigate such landscapes?

Young children, adolescents and students may experience learning difficulties as a result of lack of sleep. Dr Kristiaan van der Heijden investigates sleep problems and solutions for various age groups.

Having received a European Research Centre grant in 2025 the Connected Communities in Early Medieval Europe (COCO) project kicked off with a three-day long programme last month. From the 28th to the 30th of April the National Museum of Antiquities and the Faculty of Archaeology hosted the meetings bringing…

The Faculty of Medicine

Through his project we will unravel the global regulatory networks that control gene expression in Streptomyces bacteria and allow them to properly respond to major changes in the environment; we will then harness this knowledge to activate and identify novel antibiotics

Supervisor: Xue Yang

Supervisor: Lizi Xia

The overarching aim of this theme is to increase our understanding of the mechanisms underlying altered cognitive, affective, and social behavior in relation to mental health problems.

How do plants lure microscopically small 'support teams' into their roots for protection against diseases? And what functions are activated in the microbes and the plants?

Can process-oriented dynamic testing be applied to everyday educational practice?

What is the relationship between outcomes of dynamic testing and cognitive flexibility in young children?

Death, fire and identity in North-West Europe

What is the effect of a dynamic training in children’s inductive reasoning skills and how is it related to children’s school performances and language development.

Annually the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology awards the Speckmann prize for the best Fieldwork NL report, as well as the most accomplished master’s thesis.

If gifted children are experts in using strategies, why do they experience problems with learning? Why do they underachieve?

As a bachelor student of Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences, Femke Vlaswinkel wrote a research proposal she was allowed to carry out in her master’s BPS. Femke subsequently graduated with honors. Her research was published in the journal Scientific Reports, she won an award from the Dutch Pharmacy Society…

Health psychologist Aleksandrina Skvortsova has made clever use of the Pavlov effect to link the ‘cuddle’ hormone oxytocin with the placebo effect. This effect can alter the level of oxytocin in the body, making it possible for people to reduce the amount of medicine they need while still feeling good.…

Despite the field’s general agreement that pyrotechnology had a significant impact on the cultural evolution of humankind, our understanding of the origins and development of fire use and its role in humankind’s cultural evolution is very limited, blurred by strong disagreements over its chronology…

PhD defence

Femke Binnendijk and Olaf van Loon have been appointed as lecturers at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law at Leiden Law School.

How do people develop and how do they learn? How does their environment affect them? How do we ensure that they develop in optimal fashion? And what can we do if problems occur? These are questions that the researchers at the Institute of Education and Child Studies try to answer.

Having a chronic somatic condition can result in a variety of impairments in patients’ daily lives, including not only physical complaints such as pain, itch, and fatigue, but also problems of negative mood and impairments in social relationships. Next to disease characteristics, individual difference…

Leiden has a long history in the treatment of blood cell cancer. Research to find better therapies never stands still. One of the potential treatments currently being worked on is a ‘living medicine’.

Researchers at Leiden study group behaviour. One of their findings is that when people make sacrifices for another member of their group, it is probably instinctive. Insights of this kind enable us to better understand and influence the social processes in a neighbourhood or company.

The researchers at the Institute of Education and Child Studies focus on child rearing and the development of children and adolescents with and without developmental and other problems, in biological and non-biological families, childcare, education and care institutions.

The earth has more than 7 billion inhabitants, all of whom leave behind traces of pollution. However, not all forms of pollution have the same harmful effect. Leiden scientists help determine where we should put our priorities.

What is emotion in human and nonhuman animals? How do emotions get to expression and how do they impact on our interactions, our decisions to trust, distrust or cooperate? Why do we mimic and synchronise affective processes?

The Academy of Creative and Performing Arts (ACPA) of Leiden University and Art Institute West Den Haag are pleased to announce their close collaboration in the second season of the public series In the Making. This series, dedicated to the practice of research in the arts, will consist of seven public…

Inter-Section is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal focusing on contributions from young archaeological researchers at Leiden University. The journal aims to stimulate both undergraduate and graduate students to take an additional step in their academic development by publishing their individual research.…

Recently, NWO has decided to grant two interdisciplinary research proposals for national and international consortia submitted by researchers from the Institute of Biology Leiden. One of the proposals is led by Prof. dr. Ariane Briegel, the other one by dr. Remko Offringa.

The need for knowledge among practitioners and the lack of an academic knowledge base for specifically collective arrangements of social work in the Netherlands were the reason for Anouk de Koning, Femke Kaulingfreks and Maartje van der Woude to start working on a Dutch Research Agenda (NWA) application…

May 12 is Mother's Day in many countries. Becoming a mother is no mean feat: brain scientist Elseline Hoekzema has shown that a woman's brain changes drastically during pregnancy. She explained how in TV show De Kennis van Nu.

The IBL has four Divisions: Animal Sciences, Plant Sciences, Microbial Sciences and Science Communication and Society.

A 5 million euros grant from the Dutch Research Agenda allows Anouk de Koning and co-applicants Femke Kaulingfreks and Maartje van der Woude to study social interventions in eight Dutch cities in an innovative and interdisciplinary way.

Universiteiten moeten niet verbaasd zijn dat studenten ChatGPT gebruiken, schrijven de Leidse universitair docenten Femke Klaver en Alexander de Wit in Trouw. Want studenten reageren op efficiëntie en doelmatigheid. Hun suggestie: Leid studenten op om kritisch na te denken.

In breast cancer, metastasis rather than the primary tumour is the cause of death. A lack of oxygen in the tumour cells promotes this metastasis, accompanied by a reprogramming of the cell's metabolism. PhD candidate Qiuyu Liu investigated these alterations to get more knowledge about the actionable…

There are differing opinions about healthcare for transgender young people. Lieke Vrouenraets investigated the ethical dilemmas.

Do young people who want to change gender have the unconditional right to medical treatment? Pediatric Endocrinologist Martine de Vries, who is also Professor of Medical Ethics, treats transgender children and adolescents. She will discuss this in her ‘Pride Talk’ on 18 September.

PhD student Esmee Koedoot studied the underlying processes responsible for metastases in a dangerous type of breast cancer. She hopes to find new possibilities to fight the disease. In December 2019 she obtained her doctorate cum laude.

In medical and psychological sciences, little research has been specifically conducted on women. Hormonal fluctuations were considered too intricate. Yes, research into sex and gender differences is complex, acknowledge neuroscientists Ellen de Bruijn and Lara Wierenga, but that’s precisely why it's…

The major aim is to examine the potential of learning the body to produce a similar physiological (autonomic, neuroendocrine, or immune) and physical (e.g., desensitization of persistent physical symptoms) response to placebo medication than to active medication (pharmacological conditioning). If proven…

The Mathematical Institute has a rather liberal management structure. Tasks and responsibilities are distributed among the staff. Important decisions are taken by consensus. Various organisational divisions are featured below.