The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences brings together high-quality research and outstanding mono- and multidisciplinary teaching.

Wrenching poverty, global inequality, violent political and ethnic strife, deadlocked, unresponsive or even collapsing governments, growing dissatisfaction with democracy and missed opportunities for innovation – these are merely some of the challenges of governance and development with which our programme…

Three new initiatives will provide a more diverse view of Leiden’s academic history, literally and figuratively: a historical study on the background of students and scientists, a new book about the Academy Building, and two new sculptures of female scientists, Ewine van Dishoek, Professor of Molecular…

Turnov, a town in Northern Bohemia, counting almost 15.000 inhabitants, is situated about 90 kilometers North-East of Prague, in the Semily district. It is the capital of the Bohemian Paradise.

In what ways and to what ends did Parisian buildings overwhelm the early modern public? This study is concerned with the experience of the sublime in architecture in seventeenth-century Paris.

The winner of this year’s Iris Medal for Excellent Science Communication is Professor of Science Communication Ionica Smeets.

Louis Sicking's Maritime Conflict Management in Atlantic Europe was awarded an 'Internationalisation in the Humanities' grant from NWO. What can we learn from how maritime conflicts were managed in the past?

To what extent did the street patterns in urban districts influence crime patterns?

Anyone who has taken a walk through the centre of Leiden before might have come across him, an attentive group of tourists gathered around. After studying history, Koen van Toen, or Koen Marijt, started his own business. He now organises historical walks, among other things.

PhD defence

Individual traders should be at the forefront of the study of early modern world trade rather than institutions such as states and companies, argues Professor of Global Economic Networks Cátia Antunes. Inaugural lecture on 9 June.

Combining approaches from intellectual history, philology and the study of Arabic manuscripts, this study places the Bornu scholar Muḥammad al-Wālī within his intellectual environment on the one hand, and it portrays him as someone who responded to the concerns of ordinary Muslims around him on the…

Although migration and integration have become important concepts today as a result of globalization, migration movements, integration, and multiculturalism have always been part of the history of Europe. Few people realize how many ethnic groups participated in migration within Europe or into Europe…

Elk jaar organiseert het LIBC in samenwerking met de gemeente Leiden een Publieksdag over hersenonderzoek.

De decentralisaties van de zorg aan langdurig zieken en ouderen, jeugdzorg, en werk en inkomen die vanaf 2015 zijn doorgevoerd in Nederland hebben geleid tot een transitie van een centraal naar een lokaal stelsel van zorg en welzijn. Deze transitie beoogt zorg en ondersteuning dichter bij de inwoners…

The faculty of Humanities scores well in the anual QS World Universities Ranking By Subject list. This year we have placed sixth in the category Classics and Ancient History.

Space for open dialogue on historical slavery was created at the Keti Koti Table at Museum De Lakenhal, organised by Leiden University and the Municipality of Leiden. There, just metres away from 17th-century paintings, Leideners shared a ritual meal and spoke about the effects of slavery and our colonial…

In which way and to which extent is integration articulated in concept maps and which factors affect the resulting concept maps? By which factors is the perceived usefulness of such concept maps affected?

BSc degrees: ‘Political Science’, ‘International Relations and Organisations’. MSc degree: Political Science, with specialisations ‘International Organisation’; ‘Dutch Politics; ‘Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and Development’; ‘International Politics’; ‘Political Legitimacy and Justice’; ‘Democracy…

Fifteen knowledge institutions and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science have signed the covenant for Open Science NL. Leiden University has also joined the covenant, via the Universities of the Netherlands. This marks the start of the Dutch Research Council’s and brings the transition to open…

Her part-time job as a city guide in Dordrecht opened Lotte Hamm's eyes: not business administration, but history was her dream study. This semester she starts her bachelor's degree.

The central aim is examining gender differences in recorded crime, particularly in relation to interpersonal violence, in early modern Bologna.

The project examines the political conflict in the Red River Valley of Louisiana between the majority-black Republican Party and the overwhelmingly white Democratic Party by studying the composition and actions of each party.

How have British, Dutch, and German security services dealt with political violence and terrorism since the late 1960s; to what extent did they consider these new phenomena as a task and how have they developed activities in order to counter these security threats?

Although the world has made tremendous progress in health, education, sanitation and hygiene, global public health challenges still exist. Disparities in health exist between and within nations as evidenced by inequalities in disease burden, mortality, nutrition and environmental well-being. How does…

Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Augustan Rome: Greek culture in the Roman world.

On 1 January Minna Valjakka was appointed Professor of Contemporary Art History and Theory from a Global Perspective. Valjakka sees her appointment as 'extremely topical' because of the discussions about the decolonisation of the arts: 'Art teaches us not just about art, but also about contemporary…

At the start of the 20th century there were fewer than 2 billion people. Now at over 7 billion, Earth’s population is on target to reach 8 billion by 2027. How has this dramatic increase in human population impacted Earth’s life support systems and natural resources? How should we understand the meaning…

Covid-19 is een disruptieve ontwikkeling die hier en nu veel vraagt van zorgprofessionals, bestuurders en managers. Hoewel de crisis nog volop bezig is, is nu al duidelijk dat het Coronavirus een blijvende impact zal hebben op zorginstellingen en fundamentele vragen oproept over hoe we onze zorg optimaal…

How can you learn about women’s history if they are under-represented in historical sources? Look at news coverage of crime, says Clare Wilkinson, PhD candidate in gender and history. ‘Historical crime reporting offers a glimpse into forgotten groups.’ The doctoral defence will take place on 23 Apri…

How did “free agents” (entrepreneurs operating outside of the myriad of interests of the centralized, state-sponsored monopolies) in Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire react to the creation of colonial monopolies (royal monopolies and chartered companies) by the central states in the Early Modern…

In which way and to which extent is integration articulated in concept maps and which factors affect the resulting concept maps? By which factors is the perceived usefulness of such concept maps affected?

The main research objective is to map the cities of Roman Asia Minor in terms of location, size, urban amenities and juridical status, with the specific aim to understand the reasons how this urban settlement pattern arose.

The role of transnational, non-institutional networks in the opening up of British transatlantic trade at the end of the 17th/beginning of the 18th century

Lecture, Workshop

This book on Alba is edited by Maurits Ebben, Margriet Lacy-Bruijn and Rolof van Hövell tot Westerflier. Each of its fifteen chapters are dedicated to developing a new understanding of a sometimes misunderstood figure in European history.

Prof. dr. Iain Gardner (University of Sydney) will be a visiting scholar at Leiden University Centre for the study of Religion (LUCSoR) in September-November 2015

Multi-objective optimization is an effective technique for finding optimal solutions that balance several conflicting objectives. It has been applied in many fields of our world, because practical problems usually have more than one desired goal. For example, developing a new vehicle component might…

Cigdem Oguz defended her thesis on 13 June 2018

Human Rights at Risk brings together social scientists, legal scholars, and humanities scholars to analyze the policy challenges of human rights protection in the twenty-first century.