What is the effect of pesticides, fertilizers or plastic on water quality? And how do wind and rain affect the data? These are just some of the things that Leiden environmental scientists study in the 32 ditches of the Living Lab.

A central and much debated topic in the study of language acquisition concerns the nature of the learning mechanisms that are required. Are the computational and learning mechanisms that guide learning about language structure special and specific to language or humans?

Can zebrafish provide a fast, sensitive in vivo vertebrate model for identifying novel mechanisms of Ewing sarcoma progression and for development of new anticancer compounds in a time- and cost-effective manner?

How do first-hand narratives of war of commanders in the front line relate to the official narrative of the Eighty Years’ War?

In his dissertation Gabriel Paiuk explores the variable ways in which what is heard is formed. To address this, he postulates a novel concept of sound image in a post-anthropocentric context in which both mind and material artefacts are instances across which the image occurs, rather than hosts on which…

What are the key issues in conducting LCA of bioenergy systems? What is the environmental sustainability status of second generation bioethanol? How much would the final results of biogenic carbon neutrality assumptions deviate from the true values based on a complete inventory? How to assess the impact…

This PhD subproject concentrates on 16th-century ichthyology and takes Gessner’s Historia piscium (1558) (further HP) as its point of departure and focus.

This project is aimed at 1) elucidating the role of attention in itch and pain, including orientation, and attentional disengagement (i.e., directing attention away) from itch and pain; and 2) modifiability of these attentional processes.

What was the social function of the colonial civil law courts in eighteenth-century coastal Sri Lanka? Why did people choose to have their disputes settled by Dutch law courts?

Leiden University's interdisciplinary research programme SAILS funds young interdisciplinary scientists working at the intersection of AI and other fields. How do these researchers experience the work?

What is the neurocognitive structure of human navigation ability? What different types of navigation impairment can be distinguished? How can navigation impairment best be diagnosed and treated? How can tools like serious gaming and virtual reality be used to diagnose and treat navigation impairment…

This project focuses on Dutch registration of land and people in rural Sri Lanka. How did the practice of “fixating” the fluid social relations and dynamic daily practices into categories affect family strategies of reproduction and survival?

Leiden University investigates biodiversity not only in the Netherlands, but also abroad, with the goal of improving global nature conservation. We do so in collaboration with local universities. Education is also high on our agenda.

The research project MAXCAP: Maximizing the integration capacity of the European Union: Lessons and prospects for enlargement and beyond starts with a critical analysis of the effects of the 2004-2007 enlargement on stability, democracy and prosperity of candidate countries, on the one hand, and the…

Can dynamic testing provide us with insight in children’s potential for learning?

Human trafficking is a very topical social problem, which because of both its social and legal complexity, can only be studied in an interdisciplinary way. Combating human trafficking currently features high on national and international policy agendas.

Exploiting metabolic vulnerabilities to identify anticancer compounds in zebrafish synthetic lethality screens.

Anybody can imagine how difficult it is to read a 2000 years old text for the first time. It is almost inevitable that at first mistakes are made in deciphering and interpretation. This is why revision and correction of published texts play an important role within Papyrology.

Mazatec chants and ancient Mesoamerican pictography

An overview of awards and prizes granted to our staff and students in 2022, as well as special appointments at Leiden University and other institutions.

How to make educational innovations practical for teachers

The aim of the research project is to get insight in the biostratigraphical age and the palaeoecological setting of the Schöningen sites and hominin behavior and subsistence during the late Lower Palaeolithic.

Researchers from five different discplines work together in this interdisciplinary initiative.

Leiden University neuropsychologists have shown that customised intervention pays off. A new fundamental research-based approach in children who are in danger of going off the rails has delivered spectacular results.

Knowledge and culture subproject 2:

Bones contain information about people’s lives such as where they came from, their age at death and which diseases they suffered from. Researchers can deduce a lot from them about a person’s life and about human evolution. This generates leads that could help solve present-day problems, such as how…

Top scientists of three Dutch universities are working on software and systems for quantum computers. Researchers of the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) and the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION) are developing new algorithms to make those super computers work. The coming years,…

At the heart of this study is a thorough inquiry of categorisations of social identity used in the VOC’s record-keeping bureaucracy. How were service, occupational and caste groups classified and shaped by the VOC?

What motivates learners in bilingual education to learn English and how can and do teaching practices contribute to that motivation?

During the Autumn semester (September-December), the Netherlands Institute in Morocco (NIMAR) offers a minor that focuses on the study of Morocco from a social sciences and humanities perspective.

How can collaborative participatory action research by student-teachers and their students enhance student participation, improve educational practices, and generate knowledge about these practices that can be used for improving teacher education as well?

Dynamics of material, social and ideological relationships in the pre-Columbian insular Caribbean

This special issue of the peer-reviewed journal Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik (Brill, 2021) brings together articles that explore new digital ways of analyzing and annotating Old English vocabulary.

Within the Graduate School you can conduct your PhD research in a wide range of subjects across the Social and Behavioural Sciences, with five distinct research areas offered by its Institutes.

Efficiently responding to others’ emotions has great survival value, especially for social species, such as primates, who establish close, long-term bonds with group members. The closest living relatives to humans are the chimpanzee and the bonobo. Studying these species, and comparing them on the exact…

This project has two main aims: I. Determine when novelty promotes fear extinction. II. Discover the neurobiological mechanisms underlying these effects.

How can we understand the material instability of photographic (mixed media) artworks (1960s - present) from an integrated approach of Art History, Conservation Science and Chemistry in order to preserve these works for the future?

Rural cult places were of central importance in the non-urbanised areas of ancient Samnium, in central southern Italy. Their development, roles and functions in ancient society, however, remain important research questions. New excavations at one of these sanctuaries, the rural temple of S. Giovanni…

The majority of scientists, from archaeologists through to zoologists, collect huge volumes of data. Their massive databases contain large amounts of information which is difficult for humans to filter. With a solid grounding in statistics, we can develop algorithms for analysing and identifying patterns…

This study aims to answer two main research questions: (1) What are the main predictors of work ability in employees with migraine? (2) Can we optimise work ability in employees with migraine using a web-based intervention focused on these relevant predictors?

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The master specialisation Clinical Neuropsychology is grounded in the neurosciences relevant to clinical neuropsychology with a strong focus on evidence-based practice.

The International Bachelor in Psychology (IBP) offers a broad academic development, with knowledge of several subdisciplines, such as clinical (neuro)psychology, developmental psychology, social and organisational psychology, economic and consumer psychology, cognitive psychology and health psycholo…