The Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology is one of five research institutes of the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. The Institute is dedicated to high-quality, interdisciplinary education and research concerning culture and development.

Religion, Philosophy, and the Pre-modern World

Graig Klein, assistant professor at the Institute of Security of Global Affairs (ISGA), has been awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council (ERC) for his project TERGAP. With this 1.500.000 euro grant Klein and his research team will investigate terrorist groups’ decision-making and strategic…

Although rarely considered by the pharmaceutical industry or clinicians, 24-hour rhythms in physiology are a factor of potential influence on the pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of drugs.

Innovative Approaches by Junior Archaeological Researchers

The lack of success of new CNS drugs in clinical development is in part due to the complexity of the CNS, unexpected side effects, difficulties for drugs to penetrate the brain, but also by the lack of biomarkers.

The Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research (LACDR) has received a €750,000 grant from ZonMw for QPharmNL. This is a continuing education programme that trains professionals in computational techniques in pharmacology for innovative drug development.

Last year, the Art History program, led by lecturers Laura Bertens and Elizabeth den Hartog, started the course The Academic Art of Publishing, in which students work on editing and publishing an academic journal: 'Panoramic. The Leiden Art Review'.

Monday 5 September the eighth edition of the interdisciplinary Minor Sustainable Development started. With 65 students coming from more than 20 different disciplines we've a record number of students and backgrounds.

Dr Nadine Akkerman, lecturer in Early Modern Literature and postdoctoral researcher in Leiden, has written a new book to accompany the exhibition on Elizabeth Stuart and Amalia von Solms at the Historical Museum of The Hague. ‘They were like goddesses, constantly trying to upstage one another,’ says…

‘Seated behind her desk, she initiated and influenced embassies, conventions, ambassadorial meetings, sieges, and skirmishes that had kept a war-torn early modern Europe in its grip.’ This is how Nadine Akkerman, researcher as the Leiden Institute for Cultural Disciplines and author of The Correspondence…

Coming four years after part II, and totalling more than one thousand pages, the long awaited first part of the Correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart (1596–1662), daughter of James I, King of England and Scotland has been published.

Ever since Nadine Akkerman, Professor of Early Modern Literature & Culture, came across a woman spy in her research, secret agents have kept cropping up in her work. Now there’s Spycraft, a popular history book exploring the espionage techniques used by early modern spies, which she has co-written with…

Language courses from February onwards

In the Faculty of Archaeology depots, many artefacts, accumulated after decades of fieldwork across the world are stored. The Leiden Inventory of the Depot (LID) project aims to unlock the door to this wealth of information. Elizabeth Hicks, a Research Master’s student at the Faculty, will be re-evaluating…

Leiden University has started a collaboration with the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Poland. The project includes the exchange of students and staff, joint research, and the organisation of seminars and conferences. Besides Leiden, the universities of Copenhagen, Newcastle and Innsbruck are also…

Sonorous phenomena are always on the verge of becoming something else. As it unfolds, sound constitutes spaces, mediates presence, articulates time. Furthermore, it may prompt emotions, generate awareness, organise patterns of behaviour or trigger a sense of belonging. As sound becomes audible, it is…

A next, general pharmacological problem to be tackled is how drug-target binding kinetics in vivo, affects target occupancy as an important indicator of the time-course of drug effects.

Indigenous Latin American artifacts have attracted the interest of Europeans since the earliest moment of contact between Europeans and the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. The ERC-funded BECACO project uses an innovative multidisciplinary framework to investigate the provenance of ethnographic and…

We talk with Sophia Dittmar about starting a career in Psychology. Dittmar is currently studying the master's specialisation in Economic and Consumer Psychology at Leiden University. We talk about what she learned from her internship, why she switched masters and how to get the most out of an internship.…

More than 3,500 enthusiastic Leiden first-years, 80% of them coming to Leiden University, gathered on Monday morning 13 August at the Lammermarkt for the start of the EL CID. Music booming, the groups gathered around their mentors in two shifts, at 9.30 and 11.30.

It's never too early for students to be smart about preparing for the job market. This year Leiden University is launching new initiatives to improve the transition from university to work. The new awareness campaign - CareerTime - is starting on 29 September with career stands at the faculties.

Many children have an unhealthy diet and do not get enough exercise. Sanne de Vries wants to help everyone get a healthy start in life.

Navigation Lab Leiden has launched a study on the effects of the navigation training program we have developed, called Wayfinder. Milan van der Kuil is the main researcher on this project and studies how navigation ability can be improved in patients with acquired brain injury.

A new volume, co-edited by Nadine Akkerman of the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society, shows how ladies-in-waiting, by 'creatively manipulating their gender', often played a major role in shaping the political climate of Europe in the early modern period.

The Horizon 2020 project ImageInLife has started on 1 January, followed by a kick-off meeting at the coordinating University of Montpellier at the end this month. This Marie Skłodowska-Curie training network brings together European groups that work on the imaging of vertebrates and offers fourteen…

Seven researchers from Leiden University have been awarded an ERC Starting Grant. This will enable them to start their own project, build their research team and put their best ideas into action.

Assistant professor Political Philosophy Dorota Mokrosinska has received the ERC Starting Grant for her project Democratic Secrecy: A Philosophical Study of the Role of Secrecy in Democratic Governance. The project, running from 2015 to 2020 is funded by the European Research Council

The master’s programme Industrial Ecology (IE) started in 2004 with 12 students and has increased until 90 students from 20 different countries this year.

The €6.24 million EU-funded research project QSPainRelief has kicked off. The project aims to help patients suffering from chronic pain with novel, personalised combinational treatments and is coordinated by Elizabeth de Lange from the Leiden Academic Center for Drug Research.

El CID, the University introduction week, has begun! We spoke on Sunday evening to the first new arrivals who had come to Leiden to spend the night at the University Sports Centre. New students can sleep here all this week as well as at the ice rink or in a student house.

Spycraft, by professor Nadine Akkerman and Pete Langman has been selected by History Today and The Economist as one of 2024’s best books

In Harper’s Magazine, reviewer Dan Piepenbring discusses the latest book by professor Nadine Akkerman and Pete Langman. ‘Spycraft’ showcases how and why messages were ciphered in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England.

Nadine Akkerman recently appeared as a guest on a BBC podcast and the History Extra podcast to discuss her book Spycraft. In these interviews, she delved into the fascinating world of espionage, sharing insights from her research and highlighting key themes from her work.

On 7 May students from the Leiden Leadership Programme (LLP) and the International Leiden Leadership Programme (ILLP) gathered with an interdisciplinary panel to have a discussion about Intercultural Leadership.

30 July is the International Day of Friendship. The student years are a time when many close friendships are formed, and a surprising number of them last a whole lifetime. Two of our alumni share their stories about a special friendship.

MOOC Music & Society

Nineteen new Leiden University MOOCs have started this January. Anyone can take part in these online courses varying from combatting terrorism to kidney transplantation.

Ten scientists from Leiden University will receive a Starting Grant from the European Research Council. This will allow them to launch their own project, form their own research team and implement their best ideas.

Academics from Leiden University have started a campaign against cuts at universities.

On Friday 5 September, to mark our 450th anniversary we celebrated the opening of the faculty year together with the Leiden Revisited alumni event. Combining both annual events was a huge success, especially as staff brought along their family, partner or friends.

A jar, filled with water, that functions as an aquarium for fishes while plants or flowers grow on top. Urban Crops, a young start-up company, creates small eco-systems in jars by using aquaponic systems. The 'Ecojar' is a modern decoration in living-rooms and office spaces, but also purifies the air…

Our courses September courses start soon, be sure to apply in time

Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) has started vaccinating staff from its intensive care, emergency and COVID departments. Junior doctor Christianne van Lieshout received the first jab on 6 January.

Six researchers from Leiden University have received an ERC starting grant. This grant of on average 1.5m euros will enable the researchers to launch their own project, form their own research team and develop their best ideas.