On September 28, 2022, dr.ir. Mark Driessen presented a publication about the ancient Roman frontier in Jordan. Venue for the book launch was the residence of the Dutch Ambassador in Amman. The event was attended by Prince Hassan bin Talal and his wife Princess Sarvath el Hassan, members of the Jordanian…

The bachelor programmes German Language and Culture, Classics, Dutch Language and Culture, Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Religious studies and Linguistics have received the predicate top rated programme from the Keuzegids.

You may know it by the umbrella term 'citizen science'. You may also use terms such as volunteer mapping, patient co-researcher, or even community engaged learning to describe participatory practices in your research or teaching. No matter what you call it, there’s plenty going on when it comes to this…

On the second floor of the Sylvius Laboratory, new labs are being built for researchers of the Faculties of Social and Behavioural Sciences and Humanities. After a successful tender construction has recently started.

Annelinde Vandenbroucke received the new science communication grant for NeurolabNL Young in December 2020. This grant will help her in her mission: to make science attractive for and by youth. Vandenbroucke tells Humans of Psychology why youth is important to science and vice versa,

We are pleased to announce a call for papers for a workshop within the project 'Human Development and Its Outliers' on 26 and 27 March 2026 at Leiden University.

Green cities and a well-protected food system: Roy Remme and Oliver Taherzadeh study ways to achieve these. But how can their scientific findings lead to societal change? They share their experiences with science-policy initiatives.

A large research group involving Leiden University as corresponding Host Institution has been awarded a major European grant, the ERC Synergy Grant. This for research on how Europe developed after the fall of the Roman Empire with special attention to the yet underexplored but undoubtedly important…

The film Blade Runner as part of the law curriculum? It’s not that weird to Maartje van der Woude, Professor of Law and Society, and Frans-Willem Korsten, Professor of Literature, Culture and Law. ‘The film raises a fundamental question: what’s a human and what’s not?’ From the next academic year onwards,…

A true shower of awards for students from the Faculty of Science during the annual KHMW Young Talent Awards ceremony. On Monday, 25 November, no less than nine first-year students received a prize for the best academic results in their first year. In addition, there were graduation prizes for master’s…

Political scientist Claire Vergerio (Leiden University) has made it to the final stage of the selection process for Central European University’s annual European Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Social Sciences and Humanities. As the 2019 Casimir Prize winner, Vergerio was nominated by the Faculty…

The Netherlands in September 2021 could be characterised as a low-trust society. Trust in the government has declined significantly in the past one-and-a-half years: from almost 70 percent in April 2020 to less than 30 percent in September 2021. There has also been a slight decrease in trust between…

The new VIS grant has been awarded to four projects from the Faculty of Humanities. In a Virtual International Cooperation Project (VIS), Dutch and foreign students work together remotely on a project that links local issues to an international perspective.

On 11 June 2025, the MA in International Relations (MAIR) Programme convened its 2nd Humanities & IR Graduate Conference at The Hague Campus (Schouwburgstraat), welcoming over sixty participants from twenty institutions in Europe, North America, and Asia.

The LUCAS Impact Committee, consisting of Jan van Dijkhuizen, Rick Honings, Casper de Jonge, Angus Mol, Thijs Porck and Aafje de Roest, has offered this year’s LUCAS Public Engagement Award to Dorine Schellens and Peter Verstraten.

Conference

Excursions to Leiden museums, a flown-in American professor and a collaboration with PhD students from Cambridge: Leiden PhD candidates in early modern art were in luck this summer. An award from the Camino Laurent van Vugt Fund allowed the LUCAS research institute to organise a special summer school…

The past few days we interviewed several of our researchers about their various studies during Dutch Bio Science Week. They answered questions such as what impact their research has on our future and with whom they have established valuable collaborations.

Working towards resilient communities, transparency in science and connecting with the employment market – these are the three key themes being addressed by the departments of Social and Behavioural Sciences at Dutch universities. On 11 February, they presented a joint sector plan to Marcelis Boereboom,…

Research

It is with deep sorrow that we share the news that our dear colleague Andrea Evers passed away on Monday, 4 August 2025. Since 2013, Andrea had been affiliated with the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at Leiden University as Professor of Health Psychology. She was an undeniable driving force…

Salvador Santino Regilme, Jr. Associate Professor of International Relations and Program Chair of MA in International Relations, has been honored with the Cecil B. Currey Book Award for 2023. The accolade, presented by the Association for Global South Studies (AGSS), recognizes Regilme’s exceptional…

Assistant professor Rogier Creemers comments on CNN on the launch of the new artificial intelligence tool Sundance 2.0.

In a new episode of The Digital Period podcast, Gianclaudio Malgieri, Associate Professor at eLaw, discusses vulnerability and data protection. He explores how power, intersectionality, and value-based design can support more empathetic and participatory technologies.

Rebecca Schaefer received the new science communication grant for the SNAAR Festival in December 2020. With the festival, Schaefer wants to make music and science accessible to a wide audience. How exactly? That's what she tells in this issue of Humans of Psychology.

Francesco Ragazzi (Institute of Political Science), Julian Ross (Center for the Arts in Society) and Mark Westmoreland (Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology) set up the interdisciplinary research centre ReCNTR.

Humans and bonobos show striking similarities as well as differences when they see pictures of conspecifics. Both are more interested in photos of conspecifics that show emotion. But while our human attention is more easily drawn to photos of family members and friends that express certain emotions,…

Education, Organisation, Research

Every Political Science master’s student at Leiden University completes their degree with thesis. The thesis provides students with the opportunity to pursue a topic of their choosing in depth and conduct independent research. It is a demanding task that requires dedication, attention to detail, and…

On June 30, eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies of Leiden University organised the annual Hans Franken Lecture. This year the lecture was delivered by Jan Kleijssen, former Human Rights Director at the Council of Europe.

From academic freedom to security and medical breakthroughs: during Leiden University’s 451st Dies Natalis, the speakers reflected on the role of universities in a world of social and geopolitical tensions.

What does a 19th-century exhibition of traditional utensils from the province of Zeeland tell us about the current rise of populism? A lot, Ad Maas will say in his inaugural lecture.

Following the news that TomTom is cutting 300 jobs due to the use of artificial intelligence (AI), FGGA researchers Friso Selten and Alex Ingrams responded with opinion pieces. They place the news in a broader context and call for a more nuanced debate on AI and job losses.

In 2011, the Udhruh Archaeological Project was launched, bringing together teams of Jordanian and Dutch archaeologists to investigate the region and reconstruct ancient water harvesting techniques in the extremely arid landscape of Udhruh. Access to fresh water remains one of the most pressing global…

Bird, butterfly, fish: when you look through a children’s book, you usually don’t think about the fact that humans divided these animals, depicted in bright colours, into categories. Yet, this division has been discussed for centuries. In her PhD dissertation, Didi van Trijp shows how natural scientists…

Are you working with film, photo, sounds, creative coding, drawings or other unconventional method in the social sciences and humanities? ReCNTR has a new 2-year multimodal seminar. Check it out and apply by November 15th!

The ERC consolidator project "Food Citizens? Collective food procurement in European cities: solidarity and diversity, skills and scale" will organise a winter school on visual and collaborative methods in anthropological research at Leiden University’s Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development…

Leiden professor of molecular astrophysics and astrochemistry Ewine van Dishoeck was presented with the Niels Bohr International Gold Medal on Friday 7 October. The medal, instigated by the Danish Society of Engineers IDA, was awarded by Queen Margrethe of Denmark at a ceremony at the Carlsberg Academy…

Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Associate Professor at eLaw, contributed to 'Cyber–Physical–Human Systems', a book exploring the latest developments in interactions between cyber–physical systems and humans.

In September 2023, Geert Ham started working at the Institute for History as a PhD candidate within the ERC-funded project 'Anchoring Innovation'. Below he introduces himself.

Lecture, Asia Research Cluster

Social

People can be easily mislead with graphs. But they don’t necessarily stay misled, the research shows.

How unique is the human capacity for learning and adapting to an environment? In field research – in the rainforest and Artis Zoo – primatologist Karline Janmaat is studying how humans and other primates adapt to their environment in their search for food. She will give her inaugural lecture as Professor…

An international team of researchers led by Leiden archaeology professor Marie Soressi and Leipzig senior geneticist Matthias Meyer has recovered the DNA of a woman belonging to an Ancient North Eurasian population from a 20,000-year-old pendant. This is the first time DNA analysis has been used to…