The 'living lab' Vrouwe Vennepolder is situated just north of Leiden, The Netherlands, and aims to find ways to improve the agriculture of the future.

DIGIFOOD is a transnational research project that investigates how data governance can support equitable and sustainable digital food systems. Around the world, digital technologies are transforming agriculture. Sensors in soil, satellites in space, and mobile phones in farmers’ hands are generating…

Time, Religion and Sacred Discourses of the Ayuuk People

Interview in the popular journal for the agricultural sector Nieuwe Oogst with CML-researcher Martina Vijver about the Dutch policy on pesticides and it’s possible conflicts with the aims for clear surface and groundwater.

MICRO-biome climate smart applications: Can we use indigenous microbial rice communities to reduce methane production in agricultural settings?

The Netherlands is not particularly rich in ‘wild nature’. Comparatively, what we have is a lot of intensively used agricultural land. This means that from nature’s perspective there much to be gained by combining the ‘nature’ and ‘agriculture’ functions. Not an easy task in such a densely populated…

This long term project in Jordan is at the basis of many specialists’ studies and has several off-shoot projects. The project, with its many approaches, is also a framework for much teaching in Levantine Archaeology at Leiden University, especially concerning fieldwork methods, artefact studies, research…

Promotor: G.R. de Snoo

Microbiome composition of the spermosphere and the rhizosphere of wild and modern bean accessions grown in an agricultural and a native soil from Colombia was characterized by metagenomics and cultivation-dependent approaches.

This article discusses local expressions of crisis in Beed district, central Maharashtra. Both in public and academic discourse crisis has become the term of choice for the many structural deficiencies which make agriculture an increasingly precarious livelihood in India. While most voices subscribe…

Agrian History, 5300 BC - AD 1000; C.C. Bakels

The application of compliance archaeology techniques such as mechanical large scale excavations where large quantities of data are gathered in relatively little time (and relatively inexpensively) and a firm post-excavation research phase yielded a whole new body of archaeological evidence.

This project investigates the well-preserved agricultural terraces of the Inn valley and the evolution of resource use in the inner Alps.

Using object assemblages to reconstruct activities, modes of deposition and abandonment at the Late Bronze Age dunnu of Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria.

If Europeans eat less meat and dairy, this will have major consequences for farmers. New research shows that many barns and machines could lose their value. With the right policies, these losses can be limited. This is shown by research from Leiden, Oxford and Vienna.

Steering soil microbiomes for better crop quality: the holy grail to improve human health?

On 9 May 2018, Roy van Keulen defended his doctoral thesis 'Digital Force: Life, Liberty & Livelihood in the Information Age'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. dr. A. Ellian.

The applications of studying the early development of insects range from agriculture to material science.

In this article, published in Brill’s Encyclopedia of the Religions of the Indigenous People of South Asia Online, Erik de Maaker posed three questions. How can the persistence of the community religion, albeit marginalized, be explained? What role is left for the practices, objects, and beliefs associated…

Landscape history, representation and identity in the Grenada islandscape

This thesis explores how bees and hoverflies are distributed across the Dutch landscape and how ecological and landscape factors shape their occurrence.

The research that is united in the Liveable Planet programme, touches upon a wide range of aspects of human life. The goal is to deepen and expand the scope and to connect more researchers. The following case studies are examples of current research projects.

This volume presents fourteen papers by Roman archaeologists and historians discussing approaches to the economic history of Pompeii, and the role of the Pompeian evidence in debates about the Roman economy.

Although plant domestication has significantly altered crop genetics and phenotypes, its effects on the taxonomic and functional diversity of plant-associated microbiomes are not well understood.

Plant Sciences' contribution to the Bioactive Molecules research theme is to identify new plant bioactive molecules, and unravel their mechanisms of action in plant development or health, and the regulatory networks and (bio)synthetic pathways required for their production.

About 15 km to the south of the ancient city of Petra, archaeologists from the University of Leiden have discovered an impressive network of ancient water conservation measures and irrigated field systems.

The hinterland of important centres like Petra (Southern Jordan) can provide essential information that contribute to the understanding of their rise, expansion and decline.

Within the Global Ethnography specialisation, you can develop your own research project or make use of the research opportunities offered by our staff members listed below.

ASLU 7 - A.E. de Hingh

Microbial Sciences' contribution to the Host-Microbe Interactions research theme is to investigate how beneficial or disease-causing microbes associate and interact with their host.

Many students are finishing their master thesis on sustainability this summer. In this blog, we reflect on their topics, approaches, and goals by highlighting theses from Governance of Sustainability, European Law, Global Archaeology, Computer Science: Artificial Intelligence, Industrial Ecology, and…

Charisma K. Lepcha (PI, Sikkim University), Pradyut Guha (co-PI, Sikkim University), Rajib Sutradhar (co-PI, Christ University Bangalore) and Erik de Maaker (Leiden University) have been awarded a two-year grant of USD 18.000 to conduct research on the impact of ‘green farming’ on the sensitive mountain…

This project studies the roles of prehistoric foragers in past ecosystems to establish the character of past “natural” landscapes and enhance the management of current ones.

Through his project we will unravel the global regulatory networks that control gene expression in Streptomyces bacteria and allow them to properly respond to major changes in the environment; we will then harness this knowledge to activate and identify novel antibiotics

What are the genes and molecular mechanisms involved in bacteria-mediated plant drought tolerance?

Today’s socio-economic challenges aren’t new. In the centuries after the retreat of the Roman state people with different backgrounds and with different ways of life somehow managed to build and maintain a complex economic system in northern Gaul that would produce the ruling dynasties of Europe. By…

This study aims to provide a long time perspective of human landscape manipulation. Studying the roles of prehistoric foragers in past ecosystems is of great importance to establish the character of past 'natural' landscapes and to enhance the management of current ones.

How did slaves in the eighteenth century manage to empower themselves and their kin, and why did this become all the more difficult in the nineteenth century?

This lecture will be hosted on Thursday, 12 February 2026 at 6:00 pm.

NTER-SECTION is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal focusing on contributions from junior archaeological researchers at Leiden University. The journal offers an accessible platform for the publication of individual research by undergraduate and graduate students. The Editorial Board consists of PhD…

Context and contents of the Izcatqui manuscript in the Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam

The use of N fertilizers has increased worldwide in the past century. While this increased input of N has increased food productivity, it has also contributed to decreases in biodiversity, soil quality and environmental health, including increases in greenhouse gas emissions.

On Saturday, February 11, 2023, at the Dies for Alumni event, archaeology alumni Everest Gromoll was awarded the LUF Thesis Prize. His thesis, titled ‘Neolithizers by Nurture’, explores parallels between the only two comparable climatic shifts in the history of modern humans: that of the one 12,000…