In the spring of 2024 the Faculty of Archaeology welcomed a new postdoc. Dr Adam Benfer, originally from the United States, occupies a double position as a researcher in the project of Alex Geurds and as the Faculty’s Data Steward. ‘It is pretty much what the title says: I steward data. Essentially,…

Frans de Haas started his work at the MI with a clear mandate. Listening and talking are what he will mainly be doing ‘My role is to make sure that everyone feels comfortable in the new situation.’

Eight scientists from Leiden University have been awarded a grant by the Dutch Research Council (NWO). With this Vidi funding, the researchers can set up an innovative line of research and further expand their own research group over the next five years.

In May and June of 2021, Bachelor 1 and 2 students of the Faculty of Archaeology joined in the excavation at Oss. After the fieldwork itself, a second post-excavations week started in Leiden where each of them participated in small groups conducting archaeological find processing and working on creative…

Atrocities have been the order of the day in Syria since war broke out in 2011, but the perpetrators are rarely tried. According to PhD candidate Elizabeth Van Schaack, the international community could bring justice in Syria, but only if there is political will. PhD defence on 29 April 2020.

Seven Leiden professors have been elected as members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). In total 23 new members will be inaugurated on Monday 13 September.

He was so disappointed that he couldn't go on that archaeological field trip to the Caribbean, he spent most of his time at his computer working on his dissertation instead. But that didn't keep him from gaming from time to time, a personal passion that ultimately led to his current job. Since February…

Sixteen researchers at Leiden University have received a Veni award from the Netherlands Organisation for Academic Research (NWO). This award offers promising young researchers the opportunity to further develop their ideas for a period of three years.

The Faculty of Humanities' Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Fund provides small grants to initiatives in support of diversity and inclusion, with specific emphasis on creating an inclusive learning environment.

Markus Kornprobst writes about managing international crises.

International students who have been awarded a LExS scholarship from Leiden University were welcomed in the Academy Building on 5 September. The 50 students were presented with a certificate symbolising their scholarship.

Pioneering in the archaeology of Somaliland, hosting international TV and radio shows, and producing a very successful MOOC: Dr Sada Mire already has a formidable track record.

Our MA student Marie Costers from the University of Antwerp wrote about her experiences as a student at NVIC in Spring 2025!

After two years of corona restrictions, it was ‘back to normal’ in 2022. Migration, elections, the history of slavery, Russia, and Ukraine were much-discussed topics. We compiled an overview of the most-read news items and other events of the past year.

Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker will head a delegation that is visiting Indonesia at the end of June. The visit is to celebrate the 50th anniversary of ‘Leiden’ institute KITLV-Jakarta. What does this institute do and why is Indonesia important to the University?

NWO has awarded a Vidi subsidy to a total of 89 young and innovative researchers. Leiden researchers have won twelve of these subsidies and three subsidies have gone to the LUMC. Each researcher will receive up to 800,000 euro to develop a particular research theme or to set up a research group.

‘We’ve come because our granddaughter started studying archaeology here this year. But I’m really interested in archaeology too.’ The Open Day at the Faculty of Archaeology on 12 October was a field day for archaeology fans: workshops, lectures, activities for children and a pub quiz that covered the…

Language evolution, targeted drugs or archaeological interpretation. Researchers are making increasing use of supercomputers that can rapidly process large quantities of data. This is one reason why the University data centre will be extended and updated. ‘Datamining means we can get a better picture…

How has evolution shaped our curiosity? And how does that curiosity ensure that we now have the technological ability to discover whether we are alone in the universe? This was all covered during the celebration of Leiden University’s 449th Dies Natalis.

ESA’s space telescope Gaia, which maps the Milky Way, completes its active phase of scanning the sky on 15 January. Over the past decade, Gaia has made more than three trillion observations of about two billion stars and other cosmic objects. ‘Gaia is already the discovery machine of the decade,’ Leiden…

This section provides an overview of online tools for the study of the medieval Low Countries. The websites linked down below are often times both available in Dutch and English.

An age-old expression in Classical Chinese is yǔ zhòng bù tóng 與眾不同, meaning ‘out of the ordinary.’ It could have been the motto of Burchard J. Mansvelt Beck, who taught that language for decades at Leiden University. What was different about him? He was extraordinarily gifted, helpful, and above all…

VVIK Lecture

VVIK Lecture

Symposium

Lecture, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics (CIEL) Seminars

PhD defence

Lecture

Lecture, VVIK Lecture

Workshop

Conference, Workshop

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

Lecture, European Union Seminar

Lecture, Sociolinguistics & Discourse Studies Series

Alumni event

Alumni event

Alumni event

Conference

Alumni event

Many of the challenges of our time are too complex to be resolved within the confines of a single discipline. Leiden University is a broad-based university where an incredible number of research fields converge. That makes us the ideal breeding ground for, and practitioners of, interdisciplinary research…

This research project, that started in September 2008, aims to explore how personal and public memories of the Dutch Revolt in the seventeenth century evolved and interacted to create new political and cultural identities for the societies that eventually were to become the kingdoms of the Netherlands…

We interviewed lecturers and students about their experiences with courses on sustainability.

Lecture, LUCIS What's New?! Series

Study information

Lecture, Booklaunch - CoGloSS | Oosters Genootschap | Leiden University Press