Africa has a population of 1.5 billion. In 30 years’ time, this will be 2.5 billion. The continent’s impact on the global economy, but also on the environment, will therefore increase drastically. Researchers from the African Studies Centre Leiden (ASCL) have been aware for decades of the crucial role…

When it comes to languages and cultures, Leiden University is the university. The global expertise present places our university at the top. In Leiden and The Hague, we study languages and cultures from all regions of the world and from prehistory to the present day. In this way we create a broad view…

The emergence of new players on the world market such as India, Brazil, China, Turkey and the Gulf States gives Africans more choice in who they work with and under which terms. At the same time, African multinationals are choosing to work with regional partners and are thus furnishing old political…

The debate about Africa’s changing relations with the world has rapidly evolved over the past decade. The initial emphasis on China’s role in Africa has given way to a more diversified approach, acknowledging that other emerging global players have also become important.

The place of European states and institutions in world politics is the core focus of this pillar. Research on this theme concerns European actors’ ability to promote peace, security and justice in their neighbourhood and to shape the future of global governance by translating its economic size into…

The EU and the World is a Jean Monnet Chair, awarded to Karolina Pomorska (Institute of Political Science, Leiden University). Its aim is to promote and strengthen teaching and research in European Studies in Leiden and in The Hague.

This project will construct an inventory of possible conceptions of the resistance of the world to scientists’ claims and theories.

If we want to solve global problems, we need to know about both the theory and the practice. How does the international community make decisions about military intervention, for instance? Why is it such a complex process? Professor Herman Schaper has represented the Netherlands at the United Nations…

This research profile area brings together descriptive, historical and theoretical linguistics, as well as psycho- and neurolinguistics.

New insights for policy promoting peace and security in Europe and the world.

Social Information Processing in Children with and without Hearing Loss

The International Course on Water Use and Management in Cagayan Valley The Philippines (2011-2015)

Organisations such as the EU are of enormous benefit to the member states, but the inhabitants of the member states are often unaware of this. Leiden researchers investigate whether international organisations such as the EU or ASEAN are able to influence global politics.

This PhD project investigates the forms, functions, meanings, and socio-cultural values embedded in Palenda, in order to understand how it reflects and shapes the worldview of the Muna people (Mieno Wuna) through metaphor.

This book examines the history of The Netherlands in a way that connects global processes to local developments.

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…

Jan Frans van Dijkhuizen is a University Lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society.

National parochialism is the tendency to cooperate more with ingroup than outgroup members. Angelo Romano, Matthias Sutter, James Liu, Toshio Yamagishi & Daniel Balliet studied national parochialism across different nations and conclude in their publication in Nature Communications that it is a ubiquitous…

The World of the Fullo takes a detailed look at the fullers, craftsmen who dealt with high-quality garments, of Roman Italy. Analyzing the social and economic worlds in which the fullers lived and worked, it tells the story of their economic circumstances, the way they organized their workshops, the…

Victoria Nyst is associate professor linguistics whose research interests include historical sign language studies, sign language documentation & description, sign language technology, lexicography, linguistic iconicity, and the gesture-sign language interface. She also works with the Africa Studies…

Joanne Stolk is a Lecturer in Greek papyrology and Coptic connected to the Leiden Centre for the Arts in Society and the Leiden Papyrological Institute.

Carmen Van den Bergh is assistant professor in Italian Literature at the Leiden University Centre for Arts in Society (LUCAS) where she is director of the Italian Language and Culture Department, track leader for Italian in the MA Literary Studies and quartermaster for the new BA programme Modern Languages.…

Peter Bisschop is Professor of Sanskrit and Ancient Cultures of South Asia at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies. He is a Sanskritist and cultural historian of ancient India, with particular interest in the development of Hinduism and related traditions. His research is philological in…

Lettie Dorst is an associate professor at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics. She teaches a range of different courses in the Minor Translation and the MA Translation, including courses on Translation Studies, Translation Technology, Multimodal Translation and Subtitling. Her research focuses…

Keiko Yoshioka is a Lecturer at the Leiden University Institute for Area Studies and Head of the Japanese language programme. She specialises in Japanese language and second language acquisition, with a focus on Japanese language pedagogy, multimodal interaction—especially gestures—Japanese ideophones,…

Matthijs Westera is an assistant professor at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics.

Dr Michael Kerschner is Senior Guest Researcher at the Faculty of Archaeology. Parallel to this position he is a research associate at the Austrian Archaeological Institute of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna and responsible for the research focus “Cult and Sanctuary” there. His main field…

Meer dan twee derde van alle ontheemden op de wereldwijd zijn geen vluchteling, maar zijn ontheemd in eigen land. Zij worden volgens deskundigen veel te weinig beschermd.

How geographical and institutional openness in Dutch Guiana fostered a unique colonial economy. This publication is part of the Early American Places Series.

Despite the wealth of historical literature on the Second World War, the subject of religion and churches in occupied Europe has been undervalued.

This PhD project investigates how grammatical features and lexical elaboration in Fulfulde Juguureere reflect aspects of cattle culture.

Was the progressive colonial civil servant the precursor of the postcolonial development-aid worker?

Casper Wits is a University Lecturer in the Institute for Area Studies. His research focuses on postwar diplomatic and international history in East Asia, with a special interest in the development of Chinese and Japanse foreign policy and Sino-Japanese relations in this period. He also takes an interest…

Martine Bruil is a University Lecturer at the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics.

The researchers in the World Archaeology department of the Faculty of Archaeology concentrate on a range of different periods and regions: from humanity’s origins to the Middle Ages and the modern age, and from Asia to South America.

The department of World Archaeology combines research and education about regions all over the world, from Human Origins to the Middle Ages, and from Europe, to Asia, Africa and the America’s. That broad range in time and space makes the department a dynamic pluriform community with many different approaches,…

Whereas when we started the first Project the chief aim was pure research, to find out more about the past in a region, now we see that the countries of Europe are faced with the great problem that there are far too many archaeological sites for them to deal with by excavation, but yet some kind of…

Florian Schneider's research interests include questions of governance and public administration in the PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, political communication strategies and political content of popular Chinese entertainment, recent Chinese economic developments, as well as Chinese foreign policy. He…

On May 20 from 14:00-15:30 (CET) The Hague Journal of Diplomacy and the LeidenAsiaCentre (LAC) organise a panel discussion on China’s diplomacy, on the occasion of the launch of a special issue of the Journal on China’s Global Diplomacy, edited by Qingmin Zhang, Paul Sharp and Jan Melissen.

WORLDING AMERICA researches how ‘play’ has been a key force in the past and present process of creating America as a coherent and hegemonic ‘world,’ from 1503 to the present.

Remco Breuker is a historian of Korea and Northeast Asia, who works on medieval Korean and Northeast Asian history and on contemporary North Korean affairs. He published on the medieval state of Koryo, Korean historiography, Northeast Asia and North Korea, as well as literary translations from Korean…

AI has huge societal and economic potential and is widely used. But it also brings challenges: how do we combine human values with AI, how do we make AI more transparent and understandable, and what can AI and human cognition learn from each other, for example about language learning?