On Friday 7 March 2025 Adam Knight successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

An archaeological case-study of the Pointe des Châteaux, La Désirade and Les Îles de la Petite Terre micro-region, Guadeloupe, F.W.I.

This open access book brings together an eclectic cast of scholars in related disciplines to examine ageing in the Soviet Union, covering the practice of geriatrics, the science of gerontology, and the experience of growing old. Chapters in the book focus on concepts and themes that analyse Soviet ageing…

Khadija Kadrouch-Outmany defended her thesis on 16 September 2014.

Andrei Poama, Assistant Professor at Leiden University, published a piece in the journal of Political Philosophy about social injustice, disadvantaged offenders and the state's authority to punish.

How do processes of coalition-formation influence patterns of decision-making in the European Union?

This is a Special Issue of the peer-reviewed journal 'Social Sciences and Missions', which provides a forum for exploration of the social and political influence of Christian missions worldwide.

How can theatricality act as a mediating process between public space and public as ‘audience’? Does the presence of an observer change the nature of the observed and if so, how?

Jifeng Liu defended his thesis on 2 February 2017

With the emergence of online social networks (OSNs), the way people create and share information has changed, which becomes faster and broader than traditional social media.

The main question I want to answer is about the mutual influence between the cultural and settlements changes that occurred between the Bronze and the Early Iron Age in Margiana and the management of water resources.

Wenxin Wang defended her thesis on 26 October 2016

As part of Nexus 1492 Subproject 4: A Future for Diverse Caribbean Heritages, which seeks to shed light on how local communities interpret and engage with heritage in the present day, this doctoral study aims to gain insight into how indigenous heritage is represented in the school curriculum for social…

In this article, Annemiek de Looze and Eefje Cuppen, investigated empericallly if and how social conflict leads to institutional change.

This thesis focuses on the social dimensions of crane and wetland conservation in rural landscapes in Kenya, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

This dissertation aims to provide insight in ethnic prejudice in Chinese-Dutch children and the ethnic socialization context they are exposed to through three social-contextual factors, i.e., parents, children’s books, and the COVID pandemic.

This project combines an extensive new open database on linguistic distributions, spatial modelling and areal linguistics in order to disentangle the roles of social and environmental factors on the emergence of linguistic diversity patterns of South America.

Sonic Modernities situates Southeast Asian popular music in specific socio-historical settings, hoping that a focus on popular culture and history may shed light on how some people in a particular part of the world have been witnessing the emergence of all things modern.

On Wednesday 11 June 2025 Steffie van Gompel successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

On Wednesday 3 July 2024 Renata Schiavo successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

How were (post) colonial migrants included in post-war welfare systems?

Peyman Jafari defended his thesis on 11 October 2018

How does the criminal justice system in Indonesia safeguard the rights of and access to justice for witnesses and victims?

From 23-25 April 2014, a conference will be held on the topic of Buddhism and Social Justice. This conference confronts the common perception of Buddhism as intrinsically a tradition of peace and justice, and explores the various ways in which historically Buddhist societies of Asia have shaped, transmitted,…

From 1 January 2017, Professor of neurocognitive developmental psychology Eveline Crone has been appointed member of the Social Sciences Council of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).

The research project addresses the question how complaints in the voluntary youth care system are dealt with on the municipal level and what role (municipal) Children’s Ombudspersons play in this context, through qualitative research methods.

PhD defence

The idea that socially anxious people avoid eye contact because they are not interested in other people needs to be changed. They take their information from other physical sources, such as people's hands. This is the finding of Leiden psychologist Mariska Kret whose research has been published in…

OSCL members, amongst which our representative in the Archaeology faculty, were part of Data Carpentry for Social Sciences. Here's what happened.

On 11 January 2019, Maastricht University and the University of Groningen hosted a workshop on the regulation of social media influencers.

From a successful April Fool’s prank and alumni love stories to a fabulous float on 3 Octobe: these were the highlights of our year on our social media channels. Hope you’re following us?

It’s been a turbulent, bizarre and extraordinary year, 2020. Coronavirus turned the lives of everyone at our University upside down. Out teaching, research and all the events that are held in a year: nothing was the same as before. That this affected all of us is clear from the highlights and many reactions…

An acute shortage of social care staff means that family members often quit their jobs to care for relatives with severe disabilities. This seems too good to be true – and there is a catch. Barend Barentsen, Professor of Labour law, discusses this on Dutch consumer programme ‘Radar’.

Childhood sexual abuse is a common problem, with approximately one in five girls and one in 13 boys worldwide experiencing some form of sexual abuse before the age of 18. Despite its high prevalence, many individuals remain silent about these experiences, often delaying disclosure for years, with one…

Maral Jefroudi defended her thesis on 11 October 2017

Serhan Afacan defended his thesis on 23 June 2015

In an appeal case, an employee of a care organisation in Nijmegen who was shown the door because of her criticism about the coronavirus voiced on LinkedIn, has had her dismissal reviewed. The court in Arnhem ruled that the employee had crossed a line and that her employer was entitled to dismiss her…