Museum Boerhaave amplifies its collection with original letters and pictures from Einstein and Lorentz. Professor by special appointment Dirk van Delft, also director of Boerhaave, accepted the documents on 12 March.

Leiden's Boerhaave Museum and Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) have discovered parts of a skeleton in an 18th-century manikin. The manikin was once used as a teaching aid for midwives. As far as we know, this is the only one of its kind in the world.

Leiden and The Hague are home to a wide range of museums and collections.

The 11th edition of Leiden Museum Night will take place on Saturday 18 May 2019. Nine museums will once again be opening their doors. As it is Leiden University’s 444th anniversary this year, we will be celebrating in style at the Academic Historical Museum.

Exhibition

The Museums, Collections & Society research programme is led by the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Archaeology and aims to promote collection-based research, stimulate Leiden education in this field, and raise ethical questions regarding the collections’ origins.

What do you do with a museum collection full of individual white Nobel laureates at a time when diversity, inclusion and teamwork reign supreme? Ad Maas, professor by special appointment, and researcher Hilbrand Wouters have been awarded an NWO Museum grant to answer that question.

Lecture, social event

Grassroots heritage initiatives and community engagement

Museum Studies looks at museum practices from archaeological, historical and anthropological perspectives.

A mosaic is the only image which can do justice to museums in the Caribbean. They are as diverse and plentiful as the many communities which form the cores of their organizations and the hearts of their missions. These profoundly social museums adopt participatory practices and embark on community engagement…

The cry for decolonization has echoed throughout the museum world. Although perhaps most audibly heard in the case of ethnographic museums, many different types of museums have felt the need to engage in decolonial practices. Amidst those who have argued that an institution as deeply colonial as the…

Herman Boerhaave (1668 - 1738) is generally known to have been a dedicated doctor and chemist. However, the significant role he played in botany is less well documented, according to Margreet Wesseling. So she decided to write about about Boerhaave the botanist to mark the 350th anniversary of his birth…

How do museum visitors interpret the authenticity of museum objects? How can we support visitors' meaningful interactions with real objects?

Museums are powerful and influential institutions in their ability to shape knowledge and contribute to our identity. What we preserve and how we present our collections and heritage is closely connected to our identity and culture. In the multidisciplinary Museums, Heritage and Collections, you'll…

The master’s programme in Museum Studies at Leiden University is uniquely positioned at the intersection of Art History and Museum Studies. Informed by leading interdisciplinary research, this degree provides you with a strong academic foundation for a variety of careers in museums, galleries and heritage…

Leiden and The Hague are home to many museums with large numbers of artefacts and archives. Leiden University also and the Leiden University Library also house special collections. Museums, Collections & Society stimulates research and education and raises ethical questions regarding the collections’…

Travel back in time and learn about how the University has changed over the centuries.

The master's programme in Heritage and Museum Studies at Leiden University focuses on the relationships between past and present, the role of heritage in our society, and how our heritage can contribute to improving the quality of life and the environment.

A look into the political history of collecting and the collections of Andean mummies in Western European museums from 1830-1930 through archaeology and paleoimaging.

The 2011 disasters precipitated widespread concern among heritage scholars about the fate of Tohoku’s cultural properties, tangible and intangible. Damage to not only buildings and landscapes but also ‘formless’ heritage, some worried, could weaken social infrastructure and thus slow or undermine re…

Research on the global field of museums, heritage, commemoration, consumption and material culture

This study seeks to identify suitable local environments conditions for the objects displayed at the Jordanian museums using the proper methods in order to contribute to the stabilization of these objects.

Humanities, Centre for the Arts in Society

Museums and collections are often frontpage news nowadays. The collections stored and curated in museums, universities and private institutions are no longer seen as 'neutral' entities to be enjoyed without political connotations.

This book explores the intellectual and cultural flows between Asia and Europe which occurred during – and were formative of – the political and social changes of the first half of the twentieth century.

A pop-up exhibition ‘All the Einsteins’ will open at Rijsmuseum Boerhaave on 29 May 2019. This is the first time that the museum will present its entire collection of handwritten letters and documents by Einstein. The exhibition marks, among others, the publication of the first photo of a black hole…

Ten Leiden museums and heritage institutions have curated the online exhibition ‘Carel’s Universe’. They selected objects from their collections that symbolise retiring Rector Magnificus Carel Stolker and the research in Leiden. With direct references, playful associations and the odd nod and wink.

Are you thinking about studying Arts and Culture: Art History and Museum Studies? Learn more and watch the introduction video and the programme presentation.

As museums face more scrutiny and are being demanded to decolonize, there are opportunities for Dominican museums to adopt a critical perspective and turn their collections and exhibitions into connections to our cultural past, present, and future.

Leiden University was the first university to be established in the Netherlands. William of Orange gave Leiden Academia Lugduno Batava in 1575, it is said in recognition of the city’s courageous resistance against the seige by the Spanish invaders.

It is the spring of Arts and Science! On Tuesday April 16, Young Academy Leiden organized an interfaculty lunch during the Spring of Arts and Science, a season of interdisciplinarity that is being organized together with Jong Universiteit Leiden (JUL). This first event was a visit to Rijksmuseum Boe…

Doctoral research on recent developments in museological practices by “critical” curators, interventionist artists, and personnel initiatives, focusing on ‘queering’ as an entrance point to broader intersectional issues; resulting in a report on the ‘Queer Baseline’ (to be launched in 2020), a popular…

The treasure houses of Leiden's University Library and Naturalis house wonderful historical collections with dried plants and botanical drawings. Tinde van Andel, extraordinary professor of History of botany and gardens, studies these collections.

The Leiden wall formulae, Einstein's sink or the signature wall of Ehrenfest. It are just a few of Leiden's hidden science treasures. Alumnus from the Leiden Observatory Alex Pietrow described a few of these places on travel website Atlas Obscura.

Leiden University has made history with its many scientific discoveries; a history that is also illustrated in a variety of books and films.

Leiden University offers ambitious students a world-class environment in which to reach their potential.

The strangest things come out at night. This is the motto of the Leiden Museum Night due to take place on 28 May. Leiden University is once again playing a key part.

It is the spring of Arts and Science! On Tuesday April 16, Young Academy Leiden organized an interfaculty lunch during the Spring of Arts and Science, a season of interdisciplinarity that is being organized together with Jong Universiteit Leiden (JUL). This first event was a visit to Rijksmuseum Boe…

On the 26th of May Pao-Yi Yang successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

The ‘Contagious!’ exhibition was set to open at Rijksmuseum Boerhaave in April but had to be postponed because of the corona crisis. The museum hasn’t been twiddling its thumbs in the meantime. The exhibition will now open on 16 July, and the corona crisis has a major role.

Delve into the depths of black hole imaging as anthropologist Rodrigo Ochigame unveils the human decisions shaping its portrayal. Explore four alternative color choices at the 'Towards the Black Hole' exhibit, now showing at Rijksmuseum Boerhaave, Leiden.

With its iconic buildings, Leiden University has a strong presence throughout the city. The university has left its mark clearly on museum collections in the city.

The field of science communication is very broad. Below is a list of organisations where SCS students can fulfill internships or where alumni have found jobs.