Read about our recent research projects below.

The volume is one-stop shopping for crisis studies and a number of closely related fields, providing a window onto the latest thinking in the field. The articles reflect cutting edge, state of the art scholarship and pose key questions for research and practical development.

You can ask virtual assistant Siri about the weather, but you can’t have a real conversation with it yet. You can’t refer to anything that’s been said before, or ask the system why it says what it says. Stephan Raaijmakers, Professor by Special Appointment from TNO, hopes to change this.

How is vegetative development regulated in plants and how does this affect a plant’s life history strategy?

In educational settings such as museums, universities and schools, white, male, able-bodied and rational subjects still dominate. Although there has been a lot of theoretical work on processes of in- and exclusion through racialization, sexualization, and disabilization, we still know very little about…

Analysing the ways in which immigration structurally challenges and changes the organization and conceptual boundaries of national welfare states.

Moving Romans offers an analysis of Roman migration by applying general insights, models and theories from the field of migration history.

Research how ‘custom’, ‘traditions’ and ‘heritages’ take on new meanings in the uplands of South and (mainland) Southeast Asia.

Our group explores the larger domain of quantum measurement. In particular we investigate two themes that are closely connected: The detection of specially prepared quantum states of light and understanding and characterizing quantum photon detectors.

'The Routledge Handbook of Civil and Uncivil Society in Southeast Asia' explores the nature and implications of civil society across the region, engaging systematically with both theoretical approaches and empirical nuance for a systematic, comparative, and informative approach.

Most of the vast Tibetan literature was authored by monks. They were Buddhists par excellence, educated in a system in which Indic- and Indian-inspired texts played a pivotal role. What they wrote was primarily religious or philosophical in nature, but also extended to ‘secular’ topics. Through the…

Research in and through art is an inseparable part of the artistic or design practice of the researcher. Consequently, research-in-art (as opposed to research-about-art, such as art history) does not have a set goal or expected result, nor are there predetermined general procedures. The outcome of the…

Leiden University is realizing a new and sustainable building with state-of-the-art research and education facilities for the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, the Gorlaeus Building. The construction of the second phase, completed in January 2024, has resulted in a further expansion of the…

Vulnerability and the associated levels of social resilience is what fascinates the researchers at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology. What links a Japanese fisherman after the tsunami at Fukushima with a Ghanaian goldminer in an increasingly industrialised work environment?…

Southern Crossings: Indian activists and the Afro-Asian movement in the early Cold War era

Excavations on Saba took place between 1987 and 1992, and then in 2001 and 2002.

The Liveable Planet programme assists scientists and local communities in taking up a collective responsibility to develop in a sustainable way. This is done together with a lot of scientist from various disciplines.

The Law of the European Union is a complete reference work on all aspects of the law of the European Union, including the institutional framework, the Internal Market, Economic and Monetary Union and external policy and action.

Which microorganisms live near and inside plant roots? How do they contribute to plant health? Can microorganisms be employed in plant protection?

In this dissertation non-parametric Bayesian methods are used in the application of robotic vision.

What is the optimal design of sandy solutions for sustainable climate change adaption, from an ecological, biophysical and societal point of view?

We perform multidisciplinary research at molecular, cellular, and organismal levels of animal biology to increase fundamental understanding of health and disease.

Considering the absence of the human performer within a performance installation, the research centres around what is left of the human through traces such as sound or recorded voices, images, videos or movement and gestures. What do we perceive as ‚present‘, once the human is removed from the centre…

If, as the works of John Cage suggest, there is “no such thing as silence,” then what are the markers that show us we are experiencing silence? - what are the performative cues during musical silence? - what are the auditory and visual bookends of silence in performance, i.e. what anticipates and…

Authentication Processes in Ethnographic Museums

In CCLS several subgroups have formed, below you can find an overview of these groups with the names of the leading researchers and a short outline of the project.

This thesis describes the use of the evolutionary approach in the study of language change, aiming to provide a better insight in the mechanisms that play a role in language change and to validate this approach in the field of language change.

A study by a Leiden-Wageningen group shows that present-day humans are biologically poorly equipped to deal with the toxins they are regularly exposed to in smoky environments: compared to earlier hominins, we modern humans are probably even worse off. The study appeared in Molecular Biology and Evolution.…

This specialisation prepares you to combine the insights and rigour of social science with the practical skills needed to make a difference in the world of foreign policy formation, implementation, and evaluation.

This specialisation prepares you to combine the insights and rigour of social science with the practical skills needed to make a difference in the world of foreign policy formation, implementation, and evaluation.

This specialisation prepares you to combine the insights and rigour of social science with the practical skills needed to make a difference in the world of foreign policy formation, implementation, and evaluation.

Can we predict fluctuations in suicidal ideation in a person’s daily life, from hour to hour?

This specialisation prepares you to combine the insights and rigour of social science with the practical skills needed to make a difference in the world of foreign policy formation, implementation, and evaluation.

Would you like to learn more about communicating your research with audiences other than the scientific community? The Science Communication and Society department from Leiden University is inviting young researchers (PhD, postdoc, or other early career) to join our Summer School about science communication…

Throughout your 3-year Security Studies programme you explore the effects of events (such as war or natural disaster), understand them via relevant academic perspectives, and actively design strategies and solutions to resulting security challenges.

Urban riots, violent responses by police, drug-related assassinations, child abuse, bar fights: Violence is a core theme in today’s modern society.

This specialisation prepares you to combine the insights and rigour of social science with the practical skills needed to make a difference in the world of foreign policy formation, implementation, and evaluation.

GoodBrother aims to increase the awareness of the ethical, legal, and privacy issues associated with audio- and video-based monitoring and to propose privacy-aware working solutions for assisted living.

LIACS is a partner in the EU Erasmus+ Curriculum Development for the Asian education system. The knowledge available in the field of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence education will be shared and adapted for the Asian market.

Until recently, the role of external information processing in intelligence has rarely been investigated quantitatively or experimentally. A group of researchers from Erasmus University Rotterdam, Leiden University, GGZ Rivierduinen, and University of Edinburgh measured in a new way how and when people…

What forms does religiosity take among Muslims in Europe today? How are answers to the question of what it means to be a Muslim in Europe reached in institutions of Islamic higher education, Muslim student organizations, and women’s organizations? What is the relation between the individual and religious…

Accumulation of metals in economy and environment and its associated risks, within the Netherlands and the EU.

What performance criteria does a new technology have to fulfill in order to be added to the list of future energy options and what constraints exist in terms of broad market penetration?

The Directorate-General Police, Sanctions, and Protection has initiated this research project in order to gain insight in the nature and, if possible, the extent of the developments with regards to the pluralization of policing functions in the Netherlands in support of future policies for the benefit…

BioSolar Cells is a five-year research project in which ten knowledge institutions and 45 private industries work together.

The central question of this Vici proposal is to investigate if, and how actinobacteria exploit life without a cell wall.

The Advanced LLM programme has been taught since 2000.

Channi Li defended her thesis on 15 October 2019.

Who were the main artists and producers who generated new forms of popular music? What was the music like that was produced by artists in particular urban settings? How were particular lifestyles articulated to identify new audiences and what does this reveal about the way popular music contributed…

eLaw, the Center for Law and Digital Technologies of the Faculty of Law of Leiden University, is a multidisplinary research institute that brings together a unique combination of knowledge and experience in the area of legal, ethical, societal and technological aspects of regulating the internet and…