You’ve been accepted! Leiden University looks forward to welcoming you as a new student. Your next step is to prepare for your studies. Below you can find some tips to help you get a head start as you embark on your studies at Leiden University.

If you are interested in an academic programme, but do you not wish to complete the entire programme? Then, you can choose one of the many à la carte courses the Faculty of Humanities offers.

Get the most out of your studies at Leiden University by taking part in our extracurricular activities.

Joanita Vroom, Associate Professor Archaeology, regularly tries out old recipes, together with a group of Archaeology students. 'You really need to love garlic.'

What inspires scholars who study the history, cultures, religions and languages of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia? LUCIS interviewed scholars about their work and research in the video project “Passion in Profession”. The videos are available online now.

Organized by the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, this programme enables students and professionals from all over the world to engage in discussions on the prospects and challenges of international criminal justice.

Digitale medische technologie kan een belangrijke bijdrage leveren aan betaalbare zorg en het oplossen van het tekort aan zorgpersoneel. Maar hoe weet je of een innovatie daadwerkelijk waarde toevoegt aan het zorgsysteem?

One of the current research projects funded by the profile area Political Legitimacy is the research group From Disorder to Order: Conflict and the Resources of Legitimacy.

Isotopic insights on human diet from the later stone age to Neolithic in Northwest Africa, Morocco

Biological cells, the basic building blocks of all life forms, are surrounded by a lipid membrane. More than half of the membrane is occupied by membrane proteins, which can regulate the cell functionality through specific arrangements.

Japanese was not always the language spoken in Japan. Researchers link the arrival of the language in Japan with the migration of farmers around 400 BC. Linguist Elisabeth de Boer has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant to carry out research on the further spread of the language in Japan.

The Mycenaean civilization of ancient Greek times offers enormous potential for useful information: from innovative construction methods to ways of handling crisis situations as a society. Archaeologist Ann Brysbaert and her team analyse Mycenaean construction processes in the ERC Consolidator project…

Dear friends of the NVIC,

Dear friends of the NVIC,

Leiden University archaeologists are reconstructing houses from the Stone Age, using only resources available during that period. This method offers surprising insights into the ingenuity of our distant ancestors, and challenges existing archaeological views.

Muslim scholars work in a long and rich tradition of knowledge-production in their own culture.

Promotor: J.N. Kok, Co-Promotor: A.J. Knobbe

New Approaches to the Study of Textual Material from the Early Pharaonic to the Late Antique Period

Plants could be regarded as small chemical factories, which produce chemical substances via photosynthesis. If we can imitate photosynthesis in an artificial system, we can make clean fuels and materials out of sunlight and CO2. Huub de Groot is very close to designing a system of this kind.

Good, accessible and affordable healthcare is increasingly difficult to provide. Martin Schalij from the LUMC understands that this can keep people awake at night.

Three lecturers from Leiden University have been awarded a €100,000 Comenius Teaching grant within the Senior Fellows programme. A further two lecturers have been awarded a €50,000 grant within the Teaching Fellows programme. The grants will enable the lecturers and their project teams to realise an…

After a lobby lasting many years, the Dutch government has decided to finance an independent study of the war of decolonisation (1945-1950) in the former Dutch East Indies. This is partly due to the work of Professor of Colonial and Post-Colonial History, Gert Oostindie, Director of the KITLV. ‘The…

The secular West is struggling with the rise of AI, but so too is Muslim Southeast Asia. What can we learn from each other?

For decades it was thought that the family system of the ancient Egyptians was very similar to our own. However, PhD candidate Steffie van Gompel explains that the reality is somewhat different. ‘In Egyptian families, it was often the eldest son versus the rest of the children.’

A Functional Analysis of Pre-Columbian Shell and Stone Artefacts from Anse à la Gourde and Morel, Guadeloupe, FWI

When a star gets too close to a supermassive black hole, it is torn apart by strong tidal forces in a tidal disruption event (TDE).

Patients share valuable advice and experiences with their peers in online patient discussion groups.

Are you currently enrolled in an applied sciences programme and are you considering a university master? At Leiden University you are more than welcome. A master at University will provide more depth in knowledge and you are able to specialise in a great number of areas of expertise. With the right…

This thesis discusses the development in Proto–Indo–European, Latin and Romance of a word–formation pattern which the most adequate terminology in use dubs ‘verbal government compounds with a governing first member’; I use the shorthand ‘pickpocket compounds’.

The intracluster medium (ICM) is a hot, tenuous and X-ray emitting gas that pervades galaxy clusters.

The second and final report on the Netherlands‘ crime-terror nexus has analysed all fourteen profiles of individuals arrested in 2015 for offences of terrorism.

Situated on the west coast of modern Turkey, the site of Ephesus is one of the largest excavations in Turkey and one of the most visited tourist attractions. Only one tenth of the city has been exposed until now although the Austrian Archaeological Institute in Vienna (ÖAI) has been excavating here…

Archiving Medieval and Post-Medieval Archaeological Fieldwork Data from the Eastern Mediterranean (600-2000)

Every semester, LUCIS invites a scholar to Leiden to provide a lecture series on a topic of their choice. With these lectures, we aim to present state-of-the-art research in Islamic studies to the Leiden academic community and beyond, and to offer students and junior researchers the opportunity to get…

The renovation of the Herta Mohr building (formerly known as Cluster Zuid) is completed. It is the third project in the redevelopment of the Humanities Campus. With the renewal of these buildings, the university ensures a sustainable campus with modern facilities. The university wants to create an attractive…

The Wadi al Jizzi Archaeological Project is a systematic and long term archaeological surface survey project, investigating the rich archaeological heritage of the Wadi al Jizzi region (Oman) from the Paleolithic until the early Modern period.

For present purposes, it is important to distinguish between an early period of settlement, about 6800-6200 BC, and a late period, about 6200-5800 BC, at Tell Sabi Abyad.

There is a growing demand throughout the world for ways to understand and preserve cultural heritage. Heritage has a crucial role to play because it strengthens societies and promotes understanding among cultures. Leiden expertise in the area of heritage spans the whole world.

CompaRe aims to conduct and stimulate research on comparative regional integration in Europa, Asia, Africa and Latin-America. To this end, CompaRe organizes conferences and workshops, and CompaRe members contribute to conferences, research papers, publications and reports on comparative regional…

The research programme Descriptive and Comparative Linguistics brings together LUCL researchers who focus mainly on descriptive and comparative linguistics.

Amerindian settlement patterns and early colonial cartography in Northern Hispaniola

Past, Present and Future of Nubian Communities in Sudan

In the South and Southeast Asian Studies programme you will gain a strong foundation in the academic, language and critical thinking skills essential to understanding the history, culture and modern context of this dynamic and increasingly important region.