The essay For progress has been published to mark the 450th Dies Natalis of Leiden University. In 2025, we are celebrating our 450th anniversary, and the theme of this special year is Ahead of the Times.

Forum essays provide a framework for intellectual exchange and debate about the role of diplomacy around a particular theme. The essays are argumentative contributions and are shorter than research articles.

On 20 January 2022, Marco Stam defended the thesis 'Essays on Welfare Benefits, Employment, and Crime'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. M.G. Knoef.

On 21 November 2018, Lieke Kools defended her thesis 'Essays on wealth, health, and data collection'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. K.P. Goudswaard en Prof. dr. C.L.J. Caminada.

This thesis examines the complexity of legislative decisions within the EU, with a specific focus on the Council of the EU.

Sound & Score brings together music expertise from prominent international researchers and performers exploring the intimate relations between sound, score and notation, and the artistic possibilities that this relationship yields for performers, composers and listeners.

The Layered Heart : Essays on Persian Poetry is published in celebration of the poet and scholar Dick Davis, dubbed “our pre-eminent translator from Persian” by The Washington Post.

From corpus pragmatics and metapragmatics to accountability and intentions, and from conversational structure and im/politeness to the role of emotions in utterance interpretation, the short articles collected here represent not just the wide scope of Michael's own work but also a snapshot of the field,…

This book celebrates Maarten Mous, professor of African Linguistics at Leiden University.

This collection of seventeen essays takes its inspiration from the scholarly achievements of the Dutch historian Jan Lucassen. They reflect a central theme in his research: the history of labor.

The transformation of the myriad of medieval kingdoms, principalities, local lordships, city-‘states’ and peasant ‘republics’ into ‘modern’ states, claiming some measure of sovereignty, remains one of the core themes of European history, because it gets down to the very root of the (idea on the) Europe…

This liber amicorum is a tribute to Prof. dr. ir. Hans H. de Iongh, associate professsor at the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) of Leiden University and guest professor at the University of Antwerp, on the occasion of his retirement on 27 October 2016.

Over the last decades, income inequality has increased globally. How do social policies affect this increasing trend? How do international trade and technological progress affect inequality? What is the profile of income inequality in China?

Who had a say in making decisions about the natural world, when, how and to what end? How were rights to natural resources established? How did communities handle environmental crises? And how did dealing with the environment have an impact on the power relations in communities?

Claire Weeda, Robert Stein, and Louis Sicking have published a collection of essays in honour of Em. Prof. dr. Peter Hoppenbrouwers - also the former Scientific Director of the Research School of Medieval Studies. The contributions can be consulted freely online.

Ekaterina Pannebakker, Associate Professor of Private International Law, has won first prize in an international essay competition.

The essay focusses on ACPA PhD Guy Livingstons´ experiences of silence within the former US Embassy in The Hague, a unique (and bizarre) building from 1955 by the brutalist architect Marcel Breuer.

On 14 September, the Leiden Essay Film Festival will kick off. This three-day festival, organised by the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, marks a first for the Netherlands. Never before has there been a public event entirely dedicated to the exceptional genre of the essay film. The festival…

For most school students, writing their extended essay (or profielwerkstuk) is the first time they really come into contact with what it means to do research. But where do you start? This is a question that is nonetheless relevant in contexts where the extended essay is written in English, such as bilingual…

Joost Grootens contributes the introductory essay ‘Charles Joseph Minard: Critical Practice’ to the book ‘Le Système Minard’ on the French pioneer in the representation of statistical data in the 19th century.

On 12 November, Clare Fenwick defended her doctoral thesis, The Political Economy of Immigration and Welfare State Reform: A Collection of Comparative Political and Economic Essays on Human Mobility and Social Protection. The PhD research was supervised by Olaf van Vliet and Kees Goudswaard.

Natalia Sobrino-Saeb, third-year student at Leiden University College The Hague, won the challenge by the Ignitor Fellowship Program held by the Nobel Peace Center for her essay on the threats to journalism in Mexico. On December 10th Natalia met the Committee of the Ignitor Fellowship in Oslo and attended…

Dr. Miguel John Versluys was awarded the Zenobia Essay Prize during the recent conference Troy: the city, the war, the legend organized by the Zenobia Foundation in the Lutheran church in Amsterdam.

The jubilee conference for the centenary of the Vereniging van Drentse Gemeenten (the association of municipalities in the province of Drenthe) took place on 23 September. The conference focussed on the collaboration between the municipalities, the province and the water boards in Drenthe past, present,…

The ‘Wetenschapscongres for vwo’ gets an Anglophone edition: 'Leiden University’s Academic Challenge’.

Ruben van Gaalen used a very unique approach for a course of the research master Colonial and Global History: instead of writing an essay, he went to Dublin and made a documentary about African rappers in Ireland.

With his essay 'Why science?', mathematics prodigy Lars Pos (18) won the Robbert Dijkgraaf Essay Prize. Within the theme 'The fascinating workings of science', the bachelor student wrote a plea for the societal value of fundamental scientific research. 'Because you don’t know beforehand where we can…

Natalia Sobrino-Saeb, third-year student at LUC, won the competition by the Ignitor Fellowship Program held by the Nobel Peace Center for her essay on the threats to journalism in Mexico. An article about Natalia and her prize appeared in the Mexican newspaper El Heraldo de México.

ACPA alumni Ilya Ziblat Shay recently published the audio essay, A Fundamental Mode Of Being in the World: Improvisatory Paths as a Principle Creative Paradigm.

Children have the right to play and relax. Games, social media and video platforms are attractive new ways to do that. However, hardly any online games are designed specifically for children, nor do they factor in children's rights.

Festival

There was a time when student Lelani Antar wanted to go to film school. She ended up studying International Studies, yet she didn’t quite say goodbye to film. For her minor, she and three other students made an essay film.

When you apply for admission, you’ll be asked to submit several documents.

Along with your application, you will need to submit the documents below.

When you apply for admission, you’ll be asked to submit several documents.

When you apply for admission, you’ll be asked to submit several documents.

Early Modern Medievalisms: The Interplay between Scholarly Reflection and Artistic Production

Along with your application, you will need to submit a variety of documents. We strongly recommend that you submitt the documents and finalise your application well in advance of the application deadline.

The Academic Language Centre has developed 19 video clips on Academic Skills. The videos are divided into three categories. Watch them below for a good start to your studies!

The United Kingdom’s relationship with the European Union was supposed to be definitively settled several times during the past decade – yet it was not. The 2016 referendum brought about a surge in interest in legal questions, especially of EU law and international economic law. This presented scholars…

Subjects Barbarian, Monstrous, and Wild responds to a contemporary political climate in which historically invested figures of otherness—barbarians, savages, monsters—have become common discursive currency.

This collection of essays is the first to compare the emergence and development of these different types of regional identities.

Embracing the Provinces is a collection of essays focused on people and their daily lives living in the Roman provinces, c. 27 BC-AD 476. It offers an overview of current research on Roman provinces and frontiers, deconstructing some long-held preconceptions and providing refreshing insights into unexplored…