How do games work? How do you make them? And how do games make us and our societies and cultures? The minor Game Studies and Cultural Analysis will provide you with both the perspective and practice to give your own answers to these questions.

This thesis manuscript explores the use of video games as tools for conceptual exploration and academic research.

The Game Research Lab uses digital games as a medium for academic research. It considers entertainment games and 'serious’ games as objects of study, develops novel approaches for creating, playing, and analysing games, and studies the interactions between games and AI.

The Game Research Lab (GRL) uses digital games as a medium for academic research, and consider ‘serious’ games and entertainment games equally valuable objects of study.

The Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs of Leiden University in The Hague has developed two Serious Games, 'het Grote Migratiespel' and 'het Schipholspel' to introduce secondary school students to their study and research programmes.

Are you mad about board games? Then we’ve got good news for you: we’ve developed our very own University game, HORA EST! It’s a fun way to learn more about the University. Get your family and friends together for an evening of fun and games!

In what way can the qualities of an existing context be used as guiding and enriching principles rather than limiting factors in the process of spatial transformation?

Having open conversations about diversity and inclusion is an important first step towards change. Yet, such conversation can be emotional and vulnerable, and at times uncomfortable to initiate and sustain. The 'What’s Your Story?' Card Game aims to enable participants to exchange and respond to stories…

How well children learn depends to a large extent on good teachers and effective learning materials. Wilfried Admiraal investigates such issues as gaming as a modern learning tool. He concludes that this tool has little to offer less talented students.

Can playing certain games decrease cognitive decline or even enhance cognitive performance in the aging population?

Promotor: F. Arbab, R. De Nicola, Co-Promotor: M. Tribastone

The newly opened Culture Arcade exhibition is a place where cultural heritage and video games come together. It is co-organized and curated by the VALUE Foundation of which Faculty staff members Aris Politopoulos and Csilla Ariese-Vandemeulebroucke are part of, together with the Prince Claus Fund.

Over the last decades, aviation safety has improved strongly. As a downside, airline pilots do not have as many opportunities to develop through experience the competencies that they need in critical situations.

Combinatorial games are games for two competing players, moving in a turn-by-turn fashion, in which there is no chance nor hidden information⁠. Chess, checkers and the simpler tic tac toe are well-known examples of this class of games, as well as game of go⁠.

A defining fixture of our contemporary world, video games offer a rich spectrum of engagements with the past.

Promotores: Prof.dr. J. Zaanen & Prof.dr. K.E. Schalm

In deep reinforcement learning, searching and learning techniques are two important components. They can be used independently and in combination to deal with different problems in AI, and have achieved impressive results in game playing and robotics. These results have inspired research into artificial…

Everything you need to know about the minor Game Studies and Cultural Analysis.

This dissertation shows that dialogical logic constitutes a powerful and flexible general framework for the development and study of various logical formalisms and combinations thereof.

The Arts, Media and Society specialisation will let you explore some of the most pressing issues in today’s society, as seen from the many perspectives offered by art, artists, and (digital) media.

On Thursday 18 December, 170 first-year pupils from Gymnasium Haganum visited Leiden University’s Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA) in The Hague. The faculty has developed The Great Migration Game (Het grote Migratiespel) as a fun way to introduce pre-university pupils to its fields of…

Academia and games. One is for serious people who only have time for research, the other is a pastime best avoided if you are or want to be one of these serious people, right? Not at all!

In his lectures Aris Politopoulos combines archaeology with video games. He is one of the three nominees for the 2020 LUS Teaching Prize. 'A good teacher is always open to feedback from students.'

Play and Media is one of the six research themes of the LUCAS Modern and Contemporary cluster.

Three Leiden students will be sharing their knowledge of history while playing video games. The livestreams are part of the ‘Streaming the Past’ project and will be available on the popular streaming platform Twitch. The first livestream will be on Thursday 20 May.

HEPGAME is a research project that combines the world’s fastest computer algebra system for High Energy Physics equations, FORM, with insights from artificial intelligence. The name combines High Energy Physics and Games.

In online games conflicts between players may arise. Novin, Bos, Stevenson and Rieffe investigated factors that may explain why some adolescents react more angrily than others in this type of situation. In their realistically designed gaming environment, the (pre-programmed) fellow player suddenly started…

In the new board game Epoch – Early Inventors you explore the prehistoric landscape. You gather food and raw material to develop tools and skills, and you try to appease the gods. Dr Maikel Kuijpers was involved in its development from the start and he is very happy with the result. “There is a lot…

Not many scientists can claim to have received funding from NWO to blow bubbles and play with sand, but Martin van Hecke definitely can. Van Hecke, Professor of the Organisation of Disordered Matter, delivered his inaugural lecture on Friday 4 September, under the enigmatic title of: ‘Bellen, bollen,…

Security is key to survival for any living organism: life is full of perils and threats, both physically, environmentally, and societally. Security challenges such as terrorism, natural disasters, and cybercrime rank among the most pressing issues of our time, affecting the security and safety of millions…

What is the neurocognitive structure of human navigation ability? What different types of navigation impairment can be distinguished? How can navigation impairment best be diagnosed and treated? How can tools like serious gaming and virtual reality be used to diagnose and treat navigation impairment…

We always have several ongoing studies running in our labs. Below you can find information about each one.

Political scientists Huib Pellikaan and Niels van Willigen (Leiden University) use and elaborate on the theoretical insights from game theory in order to understand nuclear security in changing environment. Now that the relations between the US and Russia have deteriorated and smaller nuclear states…

Seven years ago, Aris Politopoulos left Athens for a master’s programme at the Leiden Faculty of Archaeology. Now he has nearly finished his PhD dissertation. Furthermore, he has become a lecturer at the research group for the Archaeology of the Near East, and co-founded a foundation that deals with…

In order to better understand the course of Alzheimer’s disease, Frédérique Kok believes that a strategic and structured approach is needed: the Mastermind research approach. With her LUF grant, Kok wants to generate high-quality data to build a mathematical model that can recognize the onset of the…

In the EU Law Live podcast episode ‘Tax, gambling and the internal market’, Vincent Delhomme discusses the recent Admiral Gaming Network case, dealing with the validity under EU free movement provisions of national tax measures in the field of gambling.

The LUMC, Leiden University and The Hague University of Applied Sciences want to help health professionals support behaviour change in the population. Such change would help people live healthier lives and reduce their risk of disease. The Municipality of The Hague is supporting this educational project…

The 'Groot Nederlands Student Kampioenschap' student games have been held for the first time in two cities, Delft and The Hague. To make this happen our Campus The Hague worked together with The Hague University of Applied Sciences and Inholland University of Applied Sciences. Three students look back…

There are a number of problems in philosophy that seem to share a similar possible solution: 'Why do promises and contracts bind?', 'Why ought citizens and judges obey the law?' and 'Can we realize the gains to be made from cooperation?'. All three problems (as well as some others) share a possible…

Media & interaction is where artificial intelligence and machine learning meet philosophy, cognitive science, and the creative arts. Examples of research questions in this domain are: 'Can an algorithm be creative by human standards?', 'Can creative processes, such as composing music or writing poetry,…

PhD Research Projects at LUCDH and Affiliated Faculties