Did you know that Arabic was for centuries the lingua franca in an area stretching from the south of Spain to the Chinese border? And that the Middle East under Muslim rule was the world’s beating heart of trade, but also of science and scholarship?

To what extent does human intervention influence the world’s biodiversity? And can we predict how biodiversity and ecosystems will change in the coming years? Inaugural lecture by Peter van Bodegom, Professor of Conservation Biology, on 8 May.

On 25 November, the global 16-day campaign 'Orange the World' against violence against women and girls started. Leiden University will also be paying attention to this campaign. On Friday 9 December, Renate van der Zee and Marieke Liem will give a lecture at the Campus The Hague (Spanish Steps, Wijnhaven)…

This volume offers a multidisciplinary view of cutting-edge research on bilingualism in Spanish and Portuguese-speaking regions, with the aim of building a bridge between sub-fields and approaches that often find themselves isolated from one another.

On Friday 11 November, GTGC, L-PEG, and LUCIR organized a workshop on Emerging powers and Development Finance across the world.

In view of its aim to aim to promote and strengthen teaching and research in European Studies, the Jean Monnet chair ‘Europe and the World' organises a series of seminars. Several interesting speakers will present their research, and both students and staff members will have ample opportunities to engage…

This volume investigates how urban growth and prosperity transformed the cities of the Roman Mediterranean in the last centuries BCE and the first centuries CE, integrating debates about Roman urban space with discourse on Roman urban history.

Japan's Occupation of Java in the Second World War draws upon written and oral Japanese, Indonesian, Dutch and English-language sources to narrate the Japanese occupation of Java as a transnational intersection between two complex Asian societies, placing this narrative in a larger wartime context of…

The multiple connections between emblematics and Natural History in the broader perspective of their underlying artistic, literary, political and religious ideologies.

Religion is everywhere. Knowledge of religion is essential for anyone who wants to understand the world. Are you fascinated by the diversity of religions, their development throughout history and their meaning today?

Leiden University will be the stage of the annual award ceremony of the World Cultural Council (WCC) on 8 November. We answer the five key questions about these prestigious prizes.

Archaeologist Mike Field spent his summer holiday riding in the toughest horse race in the world, the Mongol Derby: 1,000km in ten days across the Mongolian steppe, following in the footsteps of the Genghis Khan’s messengers. Field was thrown from his horse twice but managed to make it to the finish…

On 20 May 2021, LeidenAsiaCentre and The Hague Journal of Diplomacy held a seminar on "The Recalibration of China's Diplomacy".

Great news! Leiden University ended up as 7th most sustainable university in the world, according to Green Metric. Meaning, that Leiden University moved one place up in the rankings. In this memo, participation in this ranking is evaluated, points for improvement are given and an ambition suggestion…

The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, a world-wide effort by the botanist and plant protection community, is making considerable progress in protecting plant diversity around the world, a new report says. The Hortus botanicus Leiden is one of the partners of the project.

Forgotten Lineages explores the paths through which generations of formally enslaved and their descendants gradually forgot their past of enslavement under Dutch and British imperial rule and became local subjects in Sri Lanka and South Africa. It explores why and how forgetting rather than memory became…

How do speakers adapt to multilingual contexts?

‘We are surrounded by software and thus it is important that every child learns to program,’ says Felienne Hermans, associate professor at the Leiden Institute for Advanced Computer Science (LIACS). Hermans won the Dutch Prize for ICT Research 2021 in January, after which NRC interviewed her about her…

Studying change in the course of human history, in different places, through the lens of a diverse set of core themes; World History for International Studies offers readers a set of windows into different debates historians have been conducting.

On or around 26 November every year, Cleveringa meetings are organised for Leiden alumni throughout the world. Including in Tokyo, where Professor of Japan Studies Ivo Smits delivered his Clevering lecture to a packed hall.

In Bronze Age Europe many bronze objects such as axes, swords and jewels were deliberately left at specific spots in the landscape. PhD research by Leiden archaeologist Marieke Visser shows that these practices were expressions of people’s relationship with the world around them. ‘It was a completely…

In this course, we will focus on the fascinating history of the Arabic Medieval World. We will take you on a journey through the Middle Ages. All along, we will present you with historiographical debates and dilemmas and travel back and forth in time explaining to you how events of the past affected…

On 10 February Leiden University celebrated the official opening of Wijnhaven, the University's newest premises in The Hague. Everyone present emphasised the added value of a modern location in the heart of the city.

The project ‘Between the Holy Land and the World’ proposes a connected history of the Christian communities in the Near East (1900-1948) by means of a study of unpublished Franciscan and Dominican photographic collections.

How was the future United Nations Organization promoted to global publics during WW II?

This seminal volume covers the entire global history of urbanization since the rise of cities in Mesopotamia in the 6th millennium BC. Leiden historians Wim Blockmans, Leonard Blussé, Luuk de Ligt and Leo Lucassen contributed survey and thematic chapters.

Maak kennis met digitale veiligheid in de podcast over de BSc Cybersecurity & Cybercrime. Experts bespreken actuele thema’s zoals ransomware en online fraude.

For decades, the trade in pocketbooks prescribing how to be a good Muslim flourished in East Africa, but in recent years the number of books in circulation has been declining. University lecturer Annachiara Raia is the recipient of an Impact Explorer grant to revive this tradition, in cooperation with…

Over the last three decades, the discovery of exoplanets has revealed the boundless variety of worlds beyond our own Solar System⁠. Majority of planetary systems contain short-period planets that are larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune⁠.

Annually, approximately 60.000 people in the Netherlands undergo radiation therapy for cancer. Coen Rasch is dedicated to enhancing the precision of proton therapy.

French is a global language. It is spoken on every continent and serves as an official language for many international organisations (NATO, UN, WHO). In this minor, you improve your language skills, study French from a linguistic perspective, and immerse yourself in the rich global Francophone culture…

Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer delivered the Huizinga lecture on Friday 8 December in a packed Pieterskerk. The writer seized the opportunity of the 52nd edition to point out the importance of creativity, both for artists and scientists.

Professor of Modern China Florian Schneider researches what people do with technology and what technology does with people. Social media, for example. And then mainly in China.

One of the three long-term research interests of our group concerns the Transformation of the Roman World (c AD 450-900).

An online course offered by Leiden University on the European Union is among the top 50 MOOCs in the world. This was announced recently by MOOC platform Class Central.

Material Crossovers

The Grotius Centre has been running summer schools for many years now. The International Criminal Law Summer School will run for the 15th time this summer, and new schools are being added to the curriculum each year. Dr. Robert Heinsch, Associate Professor of International Law & Director Kalshoven-Gieskes…

Art historian and professor Kitty Zijlmans is on a mission: she wants to get rid of the notion that the West dominates the art world. To no longer put 'the West and the rest', but the exchange between ideas and cultures at the centre of art history. ‘You will see that there has been so much exchange,…

In this PhD project, we focus on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of LMs with narrative data.

Dividing Worlds: Tsunamis, Seawalls, and Ontological Politics in Northeast Japan

Addressing the core novel objective of scalably assessing the impact of possible interventions through counterfactual prediction based on spatio-temporal data.

A remarkable population of short period transiting rocky exoplanets with equilibrium temperatures on the order of 2,000 K has recently been discovered.

The students from the Leiden University Green Office have big ambitions and have outlined their recommendations in a new Green Paper. Like being the most sustainable university in the world by 2030. Students Janey Franssen and Job Kemperman are two of the paper’s authors. How do they want to achieve…

Exploring the language of the lower classes in the nineteenth century

On Friday 29 August 2025, 370 students received their Bachelor's degree in International Studies. The diplomas were awarded in the historic setting of the Pieterskerk in Leiden. Family members, friends, and staff gathered to celebrate this joyous occasion with the graduates in a packed Pieterskerk.

A project aimed at understanding the complicated process of religious transformation in one of the centres of the early Muslim world.

‘Wonder is the beginning of insight. Don’t let that academic curiosity erode.’ This was Jan Anthonie Bruijn’s call to administrators and funding bodies in his valedictory lecture.

More than 200 students completed their Bachelor’s degrees in combination with a three-year Honours programme last year. On 15 November, this resulted in a record number of certificates since the start of the Honours College 9 years ago. While listening to personal speeches, the students received their…