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

Papyrology+, founded in 2014, is a collaboration of Leiden scholars studying (Abnormal) Hieratic, Demotic, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Arabic papyri from a socio-historical, economic and linguistic perspective. Papyrology+ aims to explore new opportunities and directions in the study of ancient…

The narrow but long stretched stript of Frisian land along the North Sea was already occupied before Roman times. However, man repeatedly suffered setbacks when he tried to extend his living space, both in the tidal marshes and the peat area south of them.

Maps play a crucial role in our view of the past, yet few historians are sufficiently skilled in cartography to genuinely integrate maps into their research. This project breaks down the long-standing barriers between history and cartography by inviting emerging scholars (ResMA) to reflect on maps as…

Voor zowel archeologen, paleontologen en geologen als vrijwilligers in de archeologie en paleontologie is het geen verrassing meer dat op de stranden van de Nederlandse kust fraaie vondsten gedaan kunnen worden. Vele artikelen, boeken, tentoonstellingen, congressen, lezingen, ‘zoekdagen’, krantenberichten,…

Het Nationaal Archief en het Noord-Hollands Archief onderzoekswedstrijd

Students were able to continue their studies in September 1945 after the University had been closed for several years during the Second World War. This moment was celebrated for four days, with the traditional cortège, commemorative services and a party in the Botanical Garden. Queen Wilhelmina was…

Overview of granting opportunities in the wider digital humanities community. Follow links for the most up-to-date details on deadline dates/times and conditions for applying.

Van 4 tot en met 8 juli 2022 verzorgt Radboud Erfgoed in Nijmegen een Summer School (in het Nederlands) over erfgoedcollecties, hun geschiedenis, over sporen van gebruik en wat die ons leren over de mensen die de boeken en objecten verzamelden die nu onze collecties vormen. De deelnemers gaan aan de…

One way for governments to conduct foreign policy and promote national interests is through direct outreach and communication with the population of a foreign country. This is called public diplomacy. Historians such as Helmer Helmers and William T. Rossiter have shown that printed media were already…

Doctoral research on the history of the critical visitor and their efforts at founding alternative archives including LGBT+-focused, feminist, disability and digitizing projects, resulting in a traveling exhibition on findings (with audio-guides), popular and scholarly article, and a dissertation.

How did colonial law work to turn people into property? This project argues that colonial ideas about households and domestic authority were critical to legal processes of enslavement in the early modern Dutch empire. Using colonial court records from Dutch Brazil, Suriname, and the Moluccas, the project…

The Old Observatory has a rich history. On this page you will find a short version of the history that took place in the observatory.

An endoscopic camera was used to record images of reused medieval fragments on the inside of book bindings from the 16th and 17th centuries. The unique images were made as part of the project ‘FragmEndoscopy: An Innovative Way to Discover Hidden Heritage inside Early Modern Book Bindings’, funded by…

In the project ‘Coin production in the Low Countries: 1334-1789’, Leiden University, the International Institute of Social History, and Het Nederlands Economisch-Historisch Archief, team up to create a website that provides access to five centuries of coin production figures.

PhD Research Projects at LUCDH and Affiliated Faculties

The LUCDH foster the development of new digital research by awarding a number of Small Grants each year. COIn Grants support Infrastructure development. We congratulate our four successful awardees for 2026.

A special find has been made in the Alkmaar Regional Archive: a number of 17th-century book bindings contained pieces of parchment from a manuscript from the 11th century. The original manuscript may have belonged to a princess who fled England after the Norman Conquest.

On Thursday July 1, our alumna Lise Stork will defend her PhD thesis at Leiden University. It is about using AI to make sense of handwritten natural history archives.

Princess Beatrix celebrated her eightieth birthday on 31 January. She has a warm bond with Leiden University, having studied Law and Sociology here. Since graduating, she has been a frequent visitor to the University, to receive an Honorary Doctorate, for example, and at the re-opening of the Academy…

Overview of the main research projects at the Leiden Papyrological Institute.

During the Dutch famine of 1944–45, people were much more creative in finding food than we thought. Biology student Tom Vorstenbosch discovered that people did not only eat flower bulbs at that time, but also radish leaves and wild plants such as sorrel and chickweed.

The Leiden Centre of Data Science and the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science are part of a consortium that will carry out research on making illustrated and handwritten archives digitally accessible. The project is funded by NWO.

In a sailboat, a canoe or stowed away on a ship: during the Second World War, many Leiden students tried to cross the sea to join the Allies in Britain. ‘Soldier of Orange’ is the most famous, but who were the other ‘England voyagers’ or Engelandvaarders as they are known?

The Heritage Sector at a Crossroads: The way of Intersectionality. This project investigates how heritage institutions can achieve inclusion and accessibility within their organization, collection, and exhibition spaces that meets the breadth of demands placed by today’s “critical visitors.” Fifteen…

Stories of resistance in the Second World War are widely covered in Dutch historiography: Hannie Schaft, Erik Hazelhoff Roelfzema, and Professor Cleveringa are some of the best known. But these accounts largely focus on the Dutch domestic perspective. On the other side of the world, a complex colonial…

Klare taal en betere regels rond geheimhouding. Dit zijn enkele aanbevelingen van Leidse onderzoekers om de toegang tot informatie te verbeteren voor burgers die procederen tegen de overheid. Bestuur en rechter moeten zo vroeg en zoveel mogelijk informatie delen.

After the May elections a new University Council has now taken seat. The university democracy is the result of the long-lived national student protests in 1969. Students from Leiden joined the protests for greater representation, although their actions were less revolutionary than at other universities.…

To what extent did the Netherlands grow rich from the Transatlantic slave trade? In his dissertation 'Walcherse Ketens', Gerhard de Kok looks at Vlissingen and Middelburg, the most important slave trade cities in the Netherlands during the second half of the 18th century. It turns out that, although…

Jacques Waisvisz (98) is one of our oldest living alumni. As a Jewish student in the Second World War, he was forbidden from completing his studies. How does he look back at that time, and what was life like afterwards? ‘No one thought that the situation here would become so bad.’

Four students founded the Leiden Student Working Group on Homosexuality on the day of the Dies Natalis in 1968. This was to be the start of the LBGT+ movement in Leiden, which celebrated its 50-year anniversary this year. What has been achieved and what is the status of emancipation today?

President John Quincy Adams studied in Leiden. His father, John, who was also president, also stayed here and received a lot of support from professor and publisher Johan Luzac. And how are presidents Bush and Obama linked to Leiden?

This section provides an overview of online tools for the study of the medieval Low Countries. The websites linked down below are often times both available in Dutch and English.

The research of the Mathematical Institute is driven by the curiosity of its members and has many internal and external connections. It can be characterised as fundamental but with an open attitude towards applications.

Finally we know for sure that there is a black hole at the centre of our own galaxy. Today, astronomers unveiled the first ever photo of Sagittarius A*, a super-massive object at the centre of the Milky Way. This picture could only be taken thanks to the cooperation of telescopes worldwide.

Lecture

The LUCDH foster the development of new digital research by awarding a number of Small Grants each year. These are our past awardees.