Lise Stork, PhD candidate at LIACS, was interviewed by Mare about how to smartly digitise the collections of natural history museums.

Anthropologist Bart Barendregt is participating in a new Indonesian study program that focuses entirely on the Indonesian digital society. The Radio 1 NPO program Focus interviewed Barendregt 'live' from Java about his research on social media, Islam and boy bands.

Three enormous maps of China, created during the reign of three different emperors of the Qing dynasty, have now been made available in open access and are downloadable via Leiden University Libraries’ (UBL) Digital Collections. The rich maps are an early example of academic collaboration between the…

Leiden University Libraries (UBL) recently participated in the Pagode-Europeana-China project as an associated partner. As a result, almost two hundred items related to China from the UBL Special Collections are now available via the Europeana website. The UBL was the only library to participate in…

‘Jelena Prokic, university lecturer and researcher at the Leiden University Centre for Digital Humanities, will be preparing students for the challenges and opportunities of the digital world. In September, six modules will start on subjects such as statistics and digitally searching through texts.…

This collaborative research group (CRG) facilitates the synergies of researchers engaged with African languages and documentation of texts conducted in East Africa, paying particular attention to ‘endangered archives’ and ‘endangered languages’.

How does online learning strengthen the quality of higher education and what are the barriers to implementing this more broadly? Minister of Education Ingrid van Engelshoven talked about this issue with pioneering lecturers and students from Leiden University, Erasmus University and Delft University…

The ambition to have flexible learning pathways is about creating possibilities to improve the content and form of students’ learning process, and to link learning to students’ needs. Students who have access to a flexible range of learning pathways can align their university career with their own personal…

The Digitalisation, Data and Governance specialisation of the Bachelor of Public Administration focuses on current digitalisation issues in public administration. How does the government handle citizens' data? Is the government doing enough to restrict the use of your data by tech companies? How do…

The Heritage and Postcolonial Studies specialiation has a regional focus on colonial and postcolonial Indonesia, in transnational and comparative perspectives. You will critically study the politics and practices of archives in the context of colonial and postcolonial history, thereby engaging with…

The digitisation of society is a worldwide challenge. Not only are robots increasingly taking over human tasks, they are even beating the world champion at solving the most difficult brainteasers.

In Luganda, the widest spoken minority language in East African country Uganda, the word for photographs is Ebifananyi. However, ebifananyi does not, contrary to the etymology of the word photographs, relate to light writings. Ebifananyi instead means things that look like something else. Ebifananyi…

Hifadhi ya Dijiti ya Ustadh Mau

Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University is known for its student-centred teaching and world-leading faculty.

The labour market has seen significant changes in recent decades, not least in terms of greater flexibility and digitisation. Leiden University is keen to prepare students for a working life in which flexibility, resilience and adaptability will be essential qualities. The university’s vision on teaching…

Dutch archaeologists are making three-dimensional virtual reconstructions of archaeological objects lost in the Syrian civil war.

Teaching at Leiden University is closely interwoven with scientific research. Our teaching methods make use of technological innovations, our lecturers share their knowledge with one another and they are constantly alert to possibilities for innovation and depth in their teaching.

Digital Archaeology is concerned with digital data for for archaeological research, and the computational methods and tools required to collect, analyse and manage it.

Experimental research

The Faculty of Archaeology

The map application includes information from old and new buildings archaeological projects. This makes it possible to investigate whether water facilities (wells, cisterns) and waste facilities (cesspits, sewers) were the privilege of Leiden’s wealthy elite in the late 16th and 17th centuries or whether…

The Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) accepted the request for subsidy to digitise the archive of the archaeological fieldwork at Tell Deir Alla in the eastern Jordan Valley. The subsidy comes from its KDP-program (Small Data Project) and is meant to promote digitisation of important datasets.…

The fourteen Dutch universities have published a digital magazine in which the researchers explain the Digital Society programme in text and images.

Stefano Bellucci, university lecturer at the Institute for History, has been awarded a grant by the EAP for a pilot project for the preservation and digitisation of the workers’ files of the Takoradi Railways (now part of the Ghana Railways Corporation).

Curators devote a lot of attention to their collections. How is Martijn Storms, curator of maps and atlases at Leiden University Libraries, managing to do this now he is working from home? And how is Silvia Vermetten digitising Eastern manuscripts from home?

Whilst the world is opening up, the teaching will continue in a hybrid form next academic year. During the past year, when all of us were bound to our home offices and computer screens, new forms of education had to be developed – some of which proved to be efficient in preparing the students for their…

Study of human cultures using computational approaches

The family of the famous diplomat, sinologist and writer Robert van Gulik has donated his personal archive and part of his collection to Leiden University Libraries (UBL). The collection and archive provide insight into the life and work of Robert van Gulik, who became known among the general public…

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Faculty of Archaeology which naturally leads to questions about its past. Part of the answer might be hidden in the archival photo negatives that paint a lively portrait of archaeological research taking place more than half a century ago.

Mariken Teeuwen started at the Institute for History as a professor by special appointment of Script Culture of the Middle Ages on 1 March. ‘I’m looking forward to doing research together with students.’

Over 600 manuscripts and early prints have been made digitally available by Leiden University Libraries (UBL) via the Europeana platform. In the project 'The Art of Reading in the Middle Ages’ (ARMA), seven European heritage institutions added 30,000 digitised medieval items to Europeana’s database…

When you want to analyse big quantities of archaeological data, you run into the issue that searching through excavation reports is extremely time-consuming. If only there existed a search engine specifically focused on querying these reports… But wait, work on an archaeological search engine focused…

On 4 April 2019, the University of Basel held a conference on the subject of digitisation in academic teaching.

Leiden University and the University of Amsterdam, together with Heritage Leiden and Region, are developing a map application of historical Leiden.

An international consortium of research institutes, universities and non-academic partners in six European countries has been awarded with a research grant from the Department for Research and Innovation of the European Commission in June 2018. MIDA is coordinated by the ‘Centre National de la Recherche…

Last July, Robbert Dijkgraaf, Minister of Education, Culture and Science and Annetje Ottow, President of Leiden University's Executive Board, opened the new front office of the Leiden University office in Jakarta. The office - located on the grounds of the Dutch embassy - has a dual role. Firstly, it…

Professor Isabelle Duyvesteyn will be the new programme chair of International Studies. As of 1 September, she will be at the helm of the largest programme of the Faculty of Humanities.

Almost 4400 anatomical drawings from the collections of Leiden University Libraries (UBL) are now available through Europeana. The collection shows medical art on paper from the early eighteenth century to the present day. Most of the drawings were created in or around the Leiden University Medical…

The treasure houses of Leiden's University Library and Naturalis house wonderful historical collections with dried plants and botanical drawings. Professor by Special Appointment Tinde van Andel will be studying these collections. Inaugural lecture 6 January.

The collection guides of archives and collections of Leiden University Libraries (UBL) have been made available via the portal Collection Guides. This has greatly improved the findability, visibility and ease of use of these collection finding aids.

Using artificial intelligence is more complicated for the government than for companies. Bram Klievink, Professor of Public Administration, aims to identify the problems and find solutions.

Archiving Medieval and Post-Medieval Archaeological Fieldwork Data from the Eastern Mediterranean (600-2000)

A number of developments within and outside the University make it necessary to treat the issue of innovation with greater urgency. An overview of these developments is given below.

The ability to create objects and structures with our hands has been essential to human development. This ability is something modern society is at risk of losing. Leiden archaeologists gather knowledge about ancient processes of ‘making and creating’ over the centuries, knowledge that helps our current…

The Book and Digital Media Studies programme provides you with in-depth knowledge of the history of the book (manuscript and print) and theories and practices within the field of publishing and digital textual media. You will graduate with detailed knowledge of the most relevant issues and important…

On 28 October, Leiden University received the first Javanese Culture Prize from Universitas Sebelas Maret in Solo, Indonesia. The jury praised Leiden University’s extensive collection of Indonesian and Javanese manuscripts.

On 26 and 27 January 2017, the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society will be hosting an international graduate conference entitled ‘Landscape: Interpretations, Relations, and Representations’. A selection of researchers and artists will be invited to participate in panels, in which their…