Research into the evolutionary backgrounds of our diets can help us make the right choices in diet, health and lifestyle.

We are delighted to announce that the Digital Humanities and Artificial Intelligence minor will be offered in the 2025-2026 academic year.

There is no human society that does not employ a rich and diverse language. This course introduces you to linguistics, featuring interviews with well-known linguists and with speakers of many different languages. Join us to explore the miracles of human language!

What are the humanities? As the cluster of disciplines historically grouped together as “humanities” has grown and diversified to include media studies and digital studies alongside philosophy, art history and musicology to name a few, the need to clearly define the field is pertinent.

Large carnivores and humans, along with their livestock, have co-existed for thousands of years. However, human population growth and an increase in economic activities are modifying the landscape for large carnivores and their prey.

This book explores how physicists, astronomers, chemists, and historians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries employed ‘epistemic virtues’ such as accuracy, objectivity, and intellectual courage. In doing so, it takes the first step in providing an integrated history of the sciences…

Responsible AI for science and a strong and resilient society.

Are traces of fire use detectable in ancient hominin genomes?

Persistent somatic symptoms are long term symptoms that lack a clear medical explanation. These symptoms have a high prevalence where most people know someone who experiences such symptoms or they experience such symptoms themselves. Symptoms can vary greatly in and between people. While one person…

On 18 June 2019, Peter Kempees defended his thesis 'Hard power and the European Convention on Human Rights'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. R.A. Lawson and Prof. H. Duffy.

On 25 May, Roxane de Massol de Rebetz defended the thesis 'Beyond the dichotomy between migrant smuggling and human trafficking: a Belgian case study on the governance of migrants in transit'. The doctoral research was supervised by Maartje van der Woude, Joanne van der Leun and Masja van Meeteren.

Promotors: Prof.dr. G.R. de Snoo, Prof.dr. H. Leirs (Univ. Antwerpen), Co-promotor: H.H. de Iongh

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…

Are you thinking about studying European and International Human Rights Law? Learn more and watch the videos.

Central in this thesis are the various forms the research-teaching nexus can take in the university, especially in the Faculty of Humanities. The importance of a strong relation between research and teaching is advocated by many academics, but debate is going on about the forms this strenghthened relation…

Promotor: Prof.dr. J.A. Bouwstra, Co-promotor: Dr. A. El Ghalbzouri

Promotor: J.A. Bouwstra Co-promotor: A. El Ghalbzouri

At this year's conclusion of the PRE-Class Psychology, the central hall of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences became a hub of knowledge exchange revolving around a central theme: emotions.

A new research line is the development of liquid biopsy fingerprints to predict early Alzheimer’s disease (AD) stage in human in readily accessible body fluids in human (in collaboration with: Dr. Geert-Jan Groeneveld, CHDR; Prof. Elga de Vries, Free University Medical Center; and others).

This project envisions a broad evaluation of 20th century models of human development over the life course (ontogenesis, human constitution), including socialist and capitalist conceptions across both Eastern and Western Europe.

The Research Handbook on Labour, Business and Human Rights Law edited by prof. Janice Bellace of the University of Pennsylvania and ass. prof. Beryl ter Haar of Leiden University. The book is publisehd in Edward Elgars series on Human Rights.

The routine assumption that Upper Palaeolithic early modern humans in Europe were regular fire users who produced fire at will has never been tested against the archaeological record. Utilizing literature, database and microwear analytical approaches, this project seeks to establish the role and forms…

Patients with chronic itching often cannot focus their attention on anything else. Psychologists want to help them, but they need more knowledge about itching and attention. Jennifer Becker therefore investigated this relationship in healthy individuals. She will defend her PhD thesis on 25 June.

In 2022, many of our staff and students won fantastic prizes and were awarded important research grants.

This PhD project investigates what the universal and variable morphosyntactic properties of linguistic expressions of otherness are and how they can be modelled theoretically.

What do you build with when trees are scarce and winters are brutal? For hunter-gatherers living in current-day Ukraine some 18,000 years ago, the answer was simple: mammoth bones.

The main methodological aspects of the use of stepwise LCA estimators under different circumstances.

On 18 March 2020, Hoko Horii defended her thesis ‘Child Marriage as a Choice. Rethinking agency in international human rights’. The doctoral research was supervised by prof. A.W. Bedner and prof. G.A. van Klinken.

How can archaeological datasets reveal the interplay between past indigenous understandings of the surrounding world and resilient and sustainable ways of life in the Isthmo-Colombian Area?

Investigating epistemic and ethical practices in medical experimentation on humans in the colonial period in Southeast Asia.

The writings of Walter Benjamin (1892-1940) are famously and purposely marked by fragmentariness. Paradoxically, a central aim of his work was to connect: all his life he sought to further the integration of scholarship in the humanities which, he believed, had too long suffered from the prevalence…

Heart failure is a major health care problem with high mortality.

Environmental Humanities in the New Himalayas: Symbiotic Indigeneity, Commoning, Sustainability showcases how the eco-geological creativity of the earth is integrally woven into the landforms, cultures, and cosmovisions of modern Himalayan communities.

The European Registry of Exonerations database provides an overview of miscarriages of justice in Europe with a view to preventing future errors.

China is actively attempting to silence critical voices about the country, including in the Netherlands. This is the main conclusion of a report on Chinese interference and intimidation within the Dutch media landscape. The media are often not well prepared for this.

BACKGROUND: Explant human skin equivalents (Ex-HSEs) can be generated by placing a 4mm skin biopsy onto a dermal equivalent. The keratinocytes migrate from the biopsy onto the dermal equivalent, differentiate and form the epidermis of 1(st) generation Ex-HSEs. This is especially suitable for the expansion…

On Tuesday 23 May 2017, Jasmina Mackic defended her doctoral thesis ‘Proving discriminatory violence at the European Court of Human Rights’. The supervisor of the research is Vice Dean and Professor of Public International Law Larissa van den Herik. A brief summary of her thesis is provided below.

Using brain imaging to discover the area in the brain that recognizes emotion.

About good practices of the Institute of Psychology

As of April 2022, Mark de Rooij has been appointed SAILS Professor AI and Data Theory at the Institute of Psychology. This position will enable him to contribute to the goal of the interdisciplinary programme: to build on and expand the current expertise on AI within Leiden University, working from…