What are key regulators of plant ageing that can reverse ageing in plants (rejuvenation), and how can we use this knowledge to improve crop plants?

Team Economic and Social History

What is nationalism and how can we study it from a historical perspective? Writing the History of Nationalism answers this question by examining eleven historical approaches to nationalism studies in theory and practice.

Professor Versteeg is currently Professor of Law at Virginia School of Law in the United States, where she has been working since 2011 as Miller Center Director and Human Rights Program Director at the Center for Comparative and International Law University of the Virginia School of Law.

Leiden University has been an attractive destination for scholars ever since 1575. Our staff members welcome international colleagues to campus to discuss issues from the past, and how we should presently understand the past. ‘Leiden Conversations in History’ is a series of dialogues between historians…

A global perspective on the nature and evolution of nationalism, from the early modern era to the present.

Half a century ago, Martin Shapiro discovered that European constitutional scholarship was stuck at a stage of ‘constitutional law without politics’, presenting the EU ‘as a juristic idea; the written constitution as a sacred text; the professional commentary as a legal truth; the case law as the inevitable…

This project aims to situate the current policy concept of ‘valorization of scientific knowledge’ in historical and epistemological perspectives. Conceptual understanding of the utility of scientific practices is developed in dialogue with historical analyses of the politics of knowledge in European…

This project traces how, why, and under what circumstances scholars invoked the trope of “dogmatism,” especially in controversies. Relevant controversies from various fields, periods, and countries will be subjected to in-depth rhetorical analysis.

The Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law of Leiden University has published a collection of research essays on the separation of powers. This collection addresses the main question of whether the historically developed combination of concepts of democratic legitimacy and the separation…

Studying change in the course of human history, in different places, through the lens of a diverse set of core themes; World History for International Studies offers readers a set of windows into different debates historians have been conducting.

In Migration and Membership Regimes editors Ulbe Bosma, Gijs Kessler and Leo Lucassen bring together ten essays in an analytical framework which looks beyond the Transatlantic migration of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in a deliberate attempt to incorporate the experience of earlier periods…

Linking botanical collections, peoples, and illustrations in seventeenth century Dutch Brazil

Life Sciences Artificial Intelligence Data Science

The Centre for the History of European Integration (CHEI) is an initiative that brings together scholars working on European integration, broadly conceived, from a historical perspective.

Understanding the history of Islam and Muslim societies sheds a clear light on the complex and changing social structures of the Middle East, including the current trouble spots whose effect spreads all the way to Western Europe.

This monograph by Robert Ross provides a detailed narrative of the Kat River Settlement in the Eastern Cape of South Africa during the nineteenth century.

The narrow but long stretched stript of Frisian land along the North Sea was already occupied before Roman times. However, man repeatedly suffered setbacks when he tried to extend his living space, both in the tidal marshes and the peat area south of them.

On 1-2 November, Professor Luuk van Middelaar spoke at the Academic Conference “EU Constitutional Imagination: Between ideology and utopia” at the University of Copenhagen.

To safeguard the quality of research within Leiden University, a committee of external experts evaluates the University’s institutes once every six years according to the Standard Evaluation Protocol which is drawn up by the Association of Universities in the Netherlands (VSNU), The Royal Netherlands…

The third project, worked on by dr. Rina Knoeff, is a synthesising project directed at studying the Leiden anatomical collections as important parts of ‘public history’. It will use the results of the other projects in order to analyse anatomical collections (their focus, significant silences, audiences,…

Roel Becker and Jelle But recently joined the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law as PhD candidates.

1000 Years of World History in 100 Old Maps.

The Leiden Institute of History approaches early modern and modern European history from comparative and transnational perspectives.

This programme explores Graeco-Roman political, social, and cultural dynamics, focusing on empire development and its societal impact. It shows how imperial rule shaped cultures, religions, and identities, using inscriptions, papyri, coins, and archaeology to highlight perspectives beyond elite sour…

Welcome to the Leiden University Centre for Islamic Thought and History. The initiatives and projects undertaken here are under the auspices of the Leiden University Centre for Intercultural Philosophy. As a centre, we aim to promote the study of Arabic and Islamic thought and history, in all its different…

In this paper, Kantorowicz aims to track the persistent effect of former partitioning borders on property tax rates in Poland.

By analysing neglected (continental) spy centres and integrating these groups of female intelligencers into the traditional, male-orientated historical narratives, this project will proceed towards a gendered history of early modern espionage.

Recently, Wim Voermans, Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, and Jaroslaw Kantorowicz, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs and a research associate at the Department of Economics, were awarded a grant from the KNAW Statesman Thorbecke Fund. This grant will…

This book by Damien van Puyvelde provides the first comprehensive English-language account of France's modern foreign intelligence and explores its evolution, operations, and role in global security.