NIAS logo

Theme Groups

Theme Groups bring together scholars of different backgrounds with specific expertise to work together on a daily basis, to advance knowledge on a particular theme.

Each year, one to three research theme groups come to NIAS to carry out research that requires a longer period of daily cooperation. Theme groups are composed of maximum four scholars, and researchers work both individually and as a team on a clearly defined research topic.

Theme Groups

  1. Handprint made during the 1909 Lorenz Expedition in Dutch New Guina

    Defamiliarizing Geslacht

  2. Illustration Vectors by Vecteezy for decoration

    Academic freedom in context

  3. Canva AI image for representation

    Abstraction, Broad Generalization, and Composition: The ABCs of Analogy

  4. Image made by Canva AI depicting a large, ancient tree representing evolving perspectives.

    Why do adults change their beliefs?

  5. Hybrid Agencies: Interacting with Biological and Artificial Systems

    Hybrid Agencies: Interacting with Biological and Artificial Systems

  6. Ecology and Belonging: In Search of a New Political Space

    Ecology and Belonging: In Search of a New Political Space

  7. Early Dutch Commerce and Indigenous Landscapes

    Early Dutch Commerce and Indigenous Landscapes

  8. Re-imagining Security Labour

    Re-imagining Security Labour

  9. Future of Progressive Politics 1

    Future of Progressive Politics

  10. The nexus of the built environment, organizational legitimacy, and social networks 2

    The Spatial Segregation of Neighborhood Organizations and Entrepreneurs: Connecting Urban Inequality to the Built Environment

  11. Climate Change and the Governance of Tropical Marine Conservation

    Climate Change and the Governance of Tropical Marine Conservation

  12. Political Theories of Involuntary Servitude within Europe (1600-1850)

    Political Theories of Involuntary Servitude within Europe (1600-1850)

  13. Social Media for Digital Democracy: Theory, Applications, Algorithms

    Social Media for Digital Democracy: Theory, Applications, Algorithms

  14. Gastro-politics of multi-cultural eating: Spices

    Refuge and Belonging

  15. Accessible Tool for Language Assessment in Schools (ATLAS) 1

    Accessible Tool for Language Assessment in Schools (ATLAS)

  16. The Politics of (De)familiarization: The Common and the Strange in Contemporary Europe

    The Politics of (De)familiarization: The Common and the Strange in Contemporary Europe

  17. New Theme Group Builds Research Agenda in Studies of War, Mass Violence & Genocide

    Building a Research Agenda in the Studies of War, Mass Violence and Genocide

  18. Accountability in Medical Autonomous Expert Systems: Ethical and Epistemological Challenges for Explainable AI

    Accountability in Medical Autonomous Expert Systems: Ethical and Epistemological Challenges for Explainable AI

  19. Vassily Kandinsky Composition 8

    Legal Mobilization: Analyzing Law-Based Advocacy

  20. Understanding Knowledge in the Low Countries, 1500-1900

    Understanding Knowledge in the Low Countries, 1500-1900

  21. What is Translation? Articulating the Missing Link between Psychiatry and Neuroscience 1

    What is Translation? Articulating the Missing Link between Psychiatry and Neuroscience

  22. Three British-Indian soldiers burn down houses in Bekasi (West-Java, 1945). Collection NIMH.

    Comparing the Wars of Decolonization

  23. Commodity Frontiers and the Making of Global Capitalism 4

    Commodity Frontiers and the Making of Global Capitalism

  24. Reading and Narrating the Migration/Refugee Crisis

    Reading and Narrating the Migration/Refugee Crisis

  25. Borders and the Transfer of Knowledge

    Borders and the Transfer of Knowledge

  26. Diaspora, Migration and the Sciences: A New Integrated Perspective

    Diaspora, Migration and the Sciences: A New Integrated Perspective

  27. The Comparative Biology of Language Learning: Towards the Next Level

    The Comparative Biology of Language Learning: Towards the Next Level

  28. The Evolution of Financial Markets in Pre-Industrial Europe: The Case of the Low Countries, 1500-1800

    Knowledge and the Market: Affective Economies

  29. My Optimism Wears Heavy Boots: So much research, so few implications, towards ‘patient-proof’ empirical models and more effective interventions in mental health

    My Optimism Wears Heavy Boots: So much research, so few implications, towards ‘patient-proof’ empirical models and more effective interventions in mental health

  30. Older adults' life strategies in preparing for the future

    From Multidisciplinary Perspectives to Interdisciplinary Pathways: An Agenda for Future Retirement Research and Policy

  31. My Optimism Wears Heavy Boots: So much research, so few implications, towards ‘patient-proof’ empirical models and more effective interventions in mental health 20

    Gene x Environment Interactions in the Developing Brain

  32. Knowledge and the City, ca. 1450 – ca. 1800

    Knowledge and the City, ca. 1450 – ca. 1800

  33. Mass Communication in Classical Antiquity

  34. The Evolution of Financial Markets in Pre-Industrial Europe: The Case of the Low Countries, 1500-1800

    The Evolution of Financial Markets in Pre-Industrial Europe: The Case of the Low Countries, 1500-1800

  35. The Real and the Imagined in the Contemporary Balkans

  36. My Optimism Wears Heavy Boots: So much research, so few implications, towards ‘patient-proof’ empirical models and more effective interventions in mental health 39

    European Elections and Public Cynicism

  37. Terrorscapes. Transnational Memory of Totalitarian Terror and Genocide in Postwar Europe

  38. Dutch Atlantic Connections: The Circulation of People, Goods and Ideas in the Atlantic world, 1600-1800

  39. Texture Analysis Challenge for The Arts

  40. My Optimism Wears Heavy Boots: So much research, so few implications, towards ‘patient-proof’ empirical models and more effective interventions in mental health 11

    The Construction of Local Identities through Language Practices

  41. The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge 3

    Modelling Social Reality: Emergence of the Glass Ceiling

  42. My Optimism Wears Heavy Boots: So much research, so few implications, towards ‘patient-proof’ empirical models and more effective interventions in mental health 7

    Understanding Information Spreading in Social Networks

  43. My Optimism Wears Heavy Boots: So much research, so few implications, towards ‘patient-proof’ empirical models and more effective interventions in mental health 39

    Explaining European Union Decision-Making: Insights from the Natural and the Social Sciences

  44. Lulof_HR

    Biographies of Buildings: Virtual Futures for our Cultural Past

  45. Grace-005_Cat Thrasher

    Social Support: Channels, Contexts, Health Consequences, and Technological Applications

  46. My Optimism Wears Heavy Boots: So much research, so few implications, towards ‘patient-proof’ empirical models and more effective interventions in mental health 19

    Capturing Phylogenetic Algorithms for Linguistics

  47. The Danger of Community Failure: Conditions for Solidary Behaviour in Modern Market Societies

  48. Network Analysis

  49. Rethinking the History of Medicine: 'Rationality' and 'Magic' in Babylonia and the Graeco-Roman World

  50. The East - West Encounter

  51. A Comparative History of the Literatures of East Central Europe

  52. East Asian and Latin American Developments Compared

  53. Flexibility and Strategy in Resource Allocation

  54. National Systems of Innovation and the Idea - Innovation Chain

  55. Tatian's Diatessaron

  56. Drawing family

    Historical Developmental Psychology

  57. Translation Techniques in Armenian and Syriac

    Translation Techniques in Armenian and Syriac

  58. An Encyclopaedia of Syntactic Case Studies

  59. Stratification in Eastern and Western Europe in the 1990s

  60. Pacific Asia and Europe: Developing Interfaces

  61. Bilingualism

  62. Political Parties and the Quality of Democracy

    Political Parties and the Quality of Democracy

  63. Human Syntactic Processing

  64. Magic and Religion in the Ancient Near East

  65. The History of Dutch Concepts

  66. Water texture

    Understanding Social Dilemmas

  67. Theatre Iconography

  68. Forensic Expertise and the Law of Evidence in Europe

  69. Inventing Europe. A Transnational History of European Integration

  70. Terrorists on Trial. The Court Room as a Stage in the Struggle for Publicity, Public Support and Legitimacy

  71. Flavius Josephus - Author, Editor or Historian?

  72. Coming to Terms with a Shattered World: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Violence in Africa

    Coming to Terms with a Shattered World: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach to Violence in Africa

  73. Games, Action and Social Software

    Games, Action and Social Software

  74. Restricted Linguistic Systems as Windows on Language Genesis

  75. Rulers, History and Exegesis in the Early Middle Ages: The Formation of Carolingian Political Identity

  76. The Grotian Concept of Rights

  77. A New View on Survey Research

    A New View on Survey Research

  78. Environmental History of Southeast Asia, 1500 - 2000

    Environmental History of Southeast Asia, 1500 - 2000

  79. Older adults' life strategies in preparing for the future

    Older adults' life strategies in preparing for the future

  80. The Reception of Netherlandish Art in the Indian Ocean Region and East Asia, and its Impact on Asian Cultures

  81. The Modern and Postmodern Augustine. Aspects of His Reception from 1600 to 2000

  82. Discourses of meditation and self-reflection in art and literature, 1300-1600

  83. HUGO - Hague Utilities for Global Organisations -