Leila Demarest, Assistant Professor of African Politics at Leiden University, has recently been awarded with a Leiden University Fund research grant to study adolescents’ political attitudes and inter-group tolerance in Lagos, Nigeria.

Hifadhi ya Dijiti ya Ustadh Mau

Mozambican politician and child rights activist Graça Machel will receive an honorary doctorate from Leiden University for her commitment to the rights of women and children in Africa and elsewhere. She will be awarded the honorary doctorate on the Dies Natalis, the University’s foundation day, on 8…

Do you want to know the best reasons to study at Leiden University or want to know what's it like to live in the student cities Leiden or The Hague? Our students tell you why you have to choose Leiden University to study your bachelor's programme.

Your time at Leiden is about more than just studying. It is being a part of a lively and diverse student community. Living in beautiful and historic Leiden. And enjoying the rich cultural life of Holland, where you are right in the heart of Europe.

Do you want to know the best reasons to study at Leiden University or want to know what's it like to live in the student cities Leiden or The Hague? Our students tell you why you have to choose Leiden University to study your bachelor's programme.

Our institutes abroad are instrumental for Leiden’s internationalisation activities.

Knowledge of Muslim societies is essential to function in a globalised world and to fully understand our own Dutch society. Leiden researchers explore the languages, cultures, religions, legal systems and history of Muslim societies and in this way contribute to a centuries-old tradition.

On 8 February 2021 Leiden University celebrated its 446th anniversary.

This research profile area brings together descriptive, historical and theoretical linguistics, as well as psycho- and neurolinguistics.

Our staff and students serve on task forces that aim to translate key Una Europa themes into concrete actions.

Below you can find an overview of our network.

At LUCL, researchers have established the Leiden Hands!Lab for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies.

The academic staff of the Leiden University Institute for History.

As a universalist category, humanity is no longer the monopoly of Western humanitarianism. The central objective of Entangled Universals is to study how Islamic charitable networks in seeking to address global needs position themselves as universalist projects, entangled with Western humanitarianism…

To understand which groups turn against their government, you need to understand the political culture in which they grew up, what they expect from a ‘state’ and what alternatives there are. With its long interdisciplinary experience, ASCL is often considered to be a regional expertise centre. But this…

Inaugural lecture

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden Law School with three universities in Kenya.

Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums is a large-scale research project funded through the Dutch National Research Agenda, and led by Wayne Modest and Susan Legêne (Vrije Universiteit). Work Package 3 on “Value” phrases its main research question as follows:…

In this project, the hypothesis that language contact crucially impacts the development of spatial grammar and phonology is investigated.

This UNESCO Chair at CWTS aims to contribute to UNESCO’s agenda to foster diversity and inclusion in science. The chair has two main lines of work:

How can we promote more durable solutions to protracted refugee situations and which roles can connectivity and mobility of displaced people play to improve protection and resilience?

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of the Faculty of Humanities with Université Mohamed VI Polytechnique.

Resilient Diversity: the Governance of Racial and Religious Plurality in the Dutch Empire, 1600-1800

This PhD project investigates the impacts of recognition of sign languages on communication and instruction for deaf learners in primary schools in Uganda.

Van Vollenhoven Lecture 2025

CompaRe aims to be a hub in a global network on comparative regional integration. For regional integration is key to meeting the challenges of our globalising world. The LEAC is now also part of the CompaRe.

In 'The Spirit of Matter', Peter Pels explores the significance of emotionally evocative objects, challenging the denial of their existence in modern 'mind over matter' ideology.

Procedural administrative law in a constitutional comparative law perspective

The AAM-LR project aims at building a demonstrator of a web service that will help filed researchers to annotate audio- and video-recordings.

This project aims at documenting the Haitian Creole varieties spoken by Haitian migrants in Cuba and the Dominican Republic’s Samaná Peninsula.

Studying linguistics at the Leiden University Centre of Linguistics (LUCL) is a challenging but rewarding experience. There are few places in the world where such a broad range of languages are studied from so many different perspectives.

This book offers a comprehensive analysis of China's global resurgence and its effects on U.S. dominance.

The Leiden HANDS!Lab for Sign Languages and Deaf Studies hosts research activities in the area of sign language linguistics and Deaf studies, with a focus on Africa. In addition to various research projects, we have our Deaf studies lecture Series in International Sign and offer various regular and…

'Communal Dining in in the Roman West' explores why the practice of privately sponsored communal dining gained popularity in certain parts of the Western Roman Empire for almost 300 years.

Today, everybody and everything produces data. People produce large amounts of data in social networks and in commercial transactions. Medical, corporate, and government databases continue to grow. Sensors continue to get cheaper and are increasingly connected, creating an Internet of Things, and generating…

Like any language, the natural sign languages of deaf communities differ from each other in their grammars and lexicons. A growing number of studies indicates that sign languages make use of the gestures of hearing speakers to build linguistic structure. This implies that variation and similarities…

Troughout the ages, art has always had a large impact, from the first cave drawings until modern art forms. In the Bachelor's programme Art History at Leiden University you will not just get to know art from the Netherlands and Europe, but also from North-America, Asia and Africa. Study art from the…

Law is of major importance for socio-economic development. Ideally, law organises human interaction in a way that promotes justice and legal certainty and protects vulnerable groups from exploitation and arbitrariness.

Events related to EUTAXGOV.

What makes a good historian? When historians raise this question, as they have done for centuries, they often do so to highlight that certain personal attitudes or dispositions are indispensable or studying the past. Yet their vieuws on what virtues, skills or competencies historians need most differ…