What is the effect of a certain regime on a country’s migration policy? Political scientist Katharina Natter compared the migration policy of autocratic Morocco with that of democratising Tunisia. Her findings challenge some of the core assumptions.

Manon Post and Efstathia Dionysopoulou recently joined the Institute for History as a PhD candidate and postdoc in the framework of the 'Anchoring Innovation' program. Below, they introduce themselves!

Researchers have used AI to reconstruct the rules of a board game carved into a stone found in the Dutch city of Heerlen. The team concludes that this type of game was played several centuries earlier than previously assumed.

Six programmes in the Faculty of Humanities have been awarded the designation 'top programme' by the Keuzegids. These are the bachelor’s in German Language and Culture, Greek and Latin Language and Culture, Latin American Studies, Ancient Near East Studies, Religious Studies and Russian Studies.

Frans de Haas, professor of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy and Director of the Dutch Research School of Philosophy, will join the management team of the MI on a temporary basis, in any event until 1 January 2022, in the role of Scientific Director-Change Manager.

The bachelor programmes German Language and Culture, Classics, Dutch Language and Culture, Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Religious studies and Linguistics have received the predicate top rated programme from the Keuzegids.

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.

Anke Smits and Lucien van Beek have been awarded a Praesidium Libertatis Grant this year. Smits is an assistant professor at the LUMC and Van Beek at the Faculty of Humanities. They each receive a sum of 75,000 euros from the Leiden University Fund (LUF).

For thousands of years, the prehistoric communities of the Low Countries followed their own path, compared with the rest of Europe. An international research team has now published these findings in Nature.

Assistant Professor Briitta van Staalduinen has received the Best Dissertation Award from the American Political Science Association, Section on Class and Inequality. Her dissertation, Ethnic Inequality in the Welfare State, aims to reconcile the persistence of ethnic inequalities in expansive welfare…

An evening program in the University Library and Middle Eastern Library in Leiden for everyone who has something to do with the Middle East; from Tajikistan to the Mahreb and from Istanbul to Sanaa. View the oldest books and clay tablets from the collection and listen to the most fascinating stories…

Three PhD candidates from Leiden University have been awarded a Mosaic 2.0 scholarship for their PhD research. The Dutch Research Council (NWO) Mosaic 2.0 programme is aimed at an underrepresented group of graduates with a migrant background.

Historian Paul van Trigt and Arabist Peter Webb have been awarded Consolidator Grants by the European Research Council (ERC). This grant of up to two million euros will allow them to consolidate their research team or programme.

When asked about the mission of the Leiden Jewish Studies network, Jürgen Zangenberg, Professor of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity at Leiden University, and one of the organizers of the event says: “We try to keep the network as broad as possible, and to attract as many people from the outside…

If you travel abroad for your work, you can claim expenses for lodging, meals, minor costs and transport. The amount reimbursed depends on the country you travel to. You must have approval to travel from your manager.

The ‘Engagement with Society’ ambition is closely linked to the ‘Employability Enhancement’ and ‘Skills’ ambitions. Introducing students to social issues often gives them immediate insight into the job market they will enter. And working on social issues gives them the opportunity to develop skills…

Students and researches from all faculties at Leiden University are warmly invited to a lunch meeting on Monday 14 October, discussing the rise of AI and the challenges this poses for various governance structures. The event is hosted by Leiden University’s interdisciplinary programmes GTGC and SAIL…

The Leiden-Delft-Erasmus (LDE) alliance signed a collaboration agreement with the Indonesian Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Technology on 23 September.

Leiden University and the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) have signed an agreement on ICT for research. This is the further concretisation of previous cooperation between the two.

Five master's programmes from the Faculty of Humanities scored highly in Keuzegids 2026.

In 2022, every euro in the Netherlands lost about 10% of its value, price increases comparable to the stagflation period of the 1970s. In the same year, the value of the Argentine peso halved, while prices in China only rose by 2%. How well do we understand the economic mechanisms behind inflation?…

The story of Tutankhamun, the Egyptian pharaoh, is world famous. But did you know that the Ancient Egyptians mummified not only people but animals too? The National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden recently put a bunch of animal mummies through a CT scanner. This was in collaboration with Canon Netherlands…

Lecture, Ancient History Research Seminar

How should we address our colonial heritage? And how digital and accessible are our collections? Outgoing State Secretary Fleur Gräper spoke with researchers and heritage specialists about this on 25 January.

The Epic of Gilgamesh was a lifelong inspiration to artist Harry van Kruiningen. This tale from Mesopotamia about the adventures of Gilgamesh, the legendary king of Uruk, and his friend Enkidu is one of the oldest surviving epics in world literature. Despite its almost 4,000 year age, it still captures…

Party for Dispuut Pleyte (so called after the 19th-century Dutch Egyptologist). The study association for Ancient Near Eastern studies and Classics and Ancient Civilizations celebrates its 50th anniversary. Ahead of the festive symposium on 7 June, we look back and ahead with chairman Steef Haeldermans…

Language can be a time machine: we can learn from ancient texts how our ancestors interacted with the world around them. But can language also teach us something about people whose language has been lost? PhD candidate Anthony Jakob investigated whether the languages of prehistoric populations left…

On August 18, 2022, Henk Bodewitz, distinguished Indologist and emeritus professor of Sanskrit at Leiden University, passed away in his hometown of Utrecht.

Manuscripts that look like a comic book, that's how you could describe the manuscripts of the Dongba people from China. The manuscripts are one of the last examples of a so-called pictographic script that can only be interpreted by Dongba priests, shamans, who have knowledge of the ancient Dongba cu…