Research master's student in history Jesse Dijkshoorn collaborated on a transcription system for medieval texts. ‘It’s nice to make the Middle Ages accessible to people.’

With an off-the-charts number of downloads, outstanding media coverage, and more than 300 tweets, a small team behind the Scientific Reports article led by a Leiden PhD Igor Djakovic is living every researcher’s dream.

In the week of 15 November, the Academic Directors and two members of the Faculty Council also participated in a so-called Duplo session, after the Faculty Board did so, led by Elisa Meijer, advisor housing of the Humanities Campus project. During the session, alternatives for the Humanities Campus…

After nearly two years of retirement, Wil Roebroeks looks back on a career that began in a time of freedom and ended in a field that has undergone profound academic and social change. ‘I have been fortunate to always enjoy my work,’ he says. ‘That is also my advice to younger generations: above all,…

Neanderthals were able to outwit straight-tusked elephants, the largest land mammals of the past few million years. Leiden professor Wil Roebroeks has published an article about this together with his German colleague Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser in the Science Advances journal. The breakthrough takes…

While humanities once mainly involved books and archives, nowadays we can’t imagine life without AI. Next semester a new faculty-wide course will be introduced, taking you along with this development. University lecturer and course coordinator Yann Ryan tells us more about it.

Leiden University and the Municipality of Leiden will develop new plans for an alternative Humanities Campus in the city centre. This means they will not proceed with the compulsory purchase of the De Doelen housing complex to facilitate the construction of the new Humanities Campus. The plans to demolish…

National Meat Free Week (Nationale Week Zonder Vlees, 7–13 March) is an initiative to reduce meat consumption. Assistant professor Paul Behrens is studying what impact a change in our food consumption would have on the world. What, according to him, are the main reasons to switch to a (mainly) plant-based…

Reinout Vriesendorp has been Professor of Insolvency Law since 2016 as well as a partner at law firm De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek. For nine years, he has advanced multidisciplinary collaboration, internationalisation and high-quality education. On 9 May, he will deliver his valedictory lecture after…

What do a linguist, an artist, a Professor of Conservation and Restoration, and a lecturer at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science have in common? They all use Artificial Intelligence. On 7 April they discussed the use of AI at Leiden’s Kijkhuis cinema.

Annemiek Hogendorp has been appointed as head of the HR department of the Faculty of Humanities with effect from 1 January. ‘I’m very proud to be a member of Leiden University’s education and research community.’

Leiden University can build an alternative Humanities Campus on its own available land at the current location in the city. This is the conclusion of a feasibility study and is what the mayor and aldermen of Leiden write in a letter to the city council.

Thomas Vorisek is a video coordinator. He picked up a new hobby in his student days, entirely by coincidence, and now he makes a living out of it. Thomas likes to spend his free time on the beach.

Ruurd Halbertsma combines his work as a curator and professor by special appointment with writing thrillers. 'I'd rather respond to the discussion on looted art this way than by joining talk shows.'

Professor Wolff discusses the EU migration policy on Global Europe.

Aleydis Nissen was awarded the René Cassin Thesis Prize 2021. The René Cassin Foundation - International Institute of Human Rights organises the competition. This Prize is awarded to the best PhD theses on human rights.

Professor of Media Law and Information Society Tarlach McGonagle is concerned about the increase in online disinformation and hate speech. He argues that human rights should guide new policies for the online world. McGonagle will give his inaugural lecture on 9 May.

Now that the South Cluster is reaching its concluding phase, we are looking ahead to the next building to be developed in the context of the Humanities Campus: Matthias de Vrieshof (working title: North Cluster).

Give Nikki IJzerman a football and she’s happy. The midfielder was named Player of the Year by ADO Den Haag last season, as well as obtaining her master’s degree in Journalism and New Media.

The Leiden Faculty of Archaeology is an institution of international renown. Frequently, researchers from other places of learning visit the faculty to broaden and deepen their own expertise. Currently, the Laboratory for Human Osteoarchaeology is hosting two scholars from Egypt, Samar Abudahab and…

Educators in European science museums sometimes think rather differently about the definition of an 'authentic' object. They think carefully about how they present those objects to teach visitors something or make them curious. This was shown in research by the Science Communication & Society department.…

Wil Roebroeks was part of an international research project examining turtle shells from Neumark-Nord. The 92 shell fragments were carefully and thoroughly cleaned by Neanderthal hunters about 125,000 years ago. It is likely that they were not hunted for food but for the shells themselves as the site…

Work on the buildings for the Faculty of Humanities is continuing. Planning has begun for a modern, future-proof education building on the site of the current Reuvens building. The new education building is scheduled for completion in mid-2031.

Leiden University's Kiem grants aim to help develop new interdisciplinary and interfaculty collaborations and encounters. In the first round, a Kiem grant was awarded to a group of researchers from the Faculty of Archaeology, the Faculty of Social Sciences, and the LUMC for the organisation of a symposium…

Yes, the new Humanities Campus is going to be smaller in size. But no, that doesn’t mean there’ll be any shortage of space. The available area and a creative design will give us all the room we need. So what will such a design look like? Take a look for yourself in the Arsenaal, the Pieter de la Court…

During the Late Pleistocene, Europe was a cold and unforgiving place to live. Even so, groups of early modern humans roamed around, just like their Neanderthal counterparts. It is unclear what kind of dwellings these people inhabited to shelter them against the elements, especially in regions without…

The Max van der Stoel Human Rights Award is presented every two years on 10 December (Human Rights Day) in recognition of outstanding academic works in the field of international human rights.

There are some changes in the plans for the development of the Humanities Campus. The Faculty of Humanities along with the central organisation and the Real Estate department need to save costs due to the financial challenges at the faculty and the cuts in higher education. At the same time, we still…

If you missed the annual LUCDH Winter School Week of Digital Humanities workshops and Pilot Project Symposium (27 – 31 January 2025) this time around, you’ll have a chance to take part next year. Save the dates for the last week of January 2026!

Around lunchtime on 28 October, 18 of our colleagues gathered in a room at the Lipsius, while 22 other colleagues settled in front of their computer for a one-hour update on the development of the alternative Humanities Campus. Dean of the Faculty of Humanities Mark Rutgers and Vice-Chairman of the…

Despite Covid, the development of the Humanities Campus continues steadily. After finishing the renovated P.J. Veth building and Arsenaal, the demolition of Cluster Zuid has been completed and the contractor will soon start with the renovations.

As a woman, working in Japan and Korea can be pretty tough, Yorum Beekman discovered. It prompted her to pursue a PhD on the subject: ‘I thought: hey, that’s interesting!’

The start of the renovation of Cluster Zuid was a long time coming, but the moment has finally arrived. On Wednesday 8 June, Dean Mark Rutgers, accompanied by the contractor Constructif, symbolically marked the start of the demolition and reconstruction works by demolishing part of the roof.

PhD defence

PhD defence

A better integration of Digital Humanities into study programmes, so that students develop their digital skills as well as possible. That is what Hossam Ahmed wants to achieve in the coming years. He received a senior Comenius Fellowship to develop a digital programme for students.

In a new study published in PLOS One, Leiden archaeologist Anastasia Nikulina, together with an international team from France, Denmark, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, challenges the long-held belief that early humans had minimal impact on their environment before the rise of farming.

This initiative is supported by the Leiden University Global Seed Fund (LUGF) 2025, awarded to Santy Kouwagam (VVI) and Irene Hadiprayitno (LIAS) together with Universitas Indonesia.

A new study carried out by Leiden archaeologists Hadar Ahituv and Amanda Henry, together with international colleagues, reports the identification and analysis of 650 starch grains preserved on basalt percussive tools (anvils and hammerstones) found at an early Middle Pleistocene site in Israel. These…