Authority and Control in the Countryside looks at the economic, religious, political and cultural instruments that local and regional powers in the late antique to early medieval Mediterranean and Near East used to manage their rural hinterlands.

Our own Dr. Martin Berger has been accepted as a member of the Young Academy Leiden! He is thrilled with his appointment. ‘I am honored to be accepted as a member of the Young Academy Leiden and am looking forward to working together with other scholars from across the University.’

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.P. van Wezel, Co-Promotor: E. Vijgenboom

Irna Hofman defended her thesis on 10 January 2019.

Dit proefschrift beschrijft een collectie aan alternatieve strategieën voor het begrijpen, ontwerpen en toepassen van lipide nanosystemen, waarin de rol van de bio-nano interacties centraal staan. In het bijzonder wordt gekeken naar de interactie van RNA-lipide nanosystemen, bekend van de toepassing…

Promotor: P.J.J. Hooykaas, Co-Promotores: P.B.F. Ouwerkerk, M. Wang

All over Europe you will find ethnographic museums with large collections of indigenous objects from Latin America. These collections shaped the image of native populations in the European mind. An ERC Starting Grant allows Dr Martin Berger to look at the bigger picture, contextualizing individual collections…

In the course of 2020 the Faculty of Archaeology was bolstered by some new staff members. Due to the coronavirus situation, sadly, this went for a large part unnoticed. In a series of interviews we are catching up, giving the floor to our new colleagues. We give the floor to Dr Martin Berger, who joined…

Actinobacteria are Gram-positive bacteria that have a complex multicellular life cycle and are well known for their ability to produce a wide range of bioactive natural products (NPs).

The PID-directed shift in PIN polarity has been broadly accepted as one of the essential mechanisms for the regulation of auxin transport polarity.

The transition period in which men become fathers might provide an important window of opportunity for parenting interventions that may produce long-term positive effects on paternal care and, consequently, child development. Existing prenatal programs traditionally focus on maternal and infant health…

China is a one-party regime, yet elections are held for the local congresses. PhD candidate Wang Zhongyuan investigated how the Communist Party uses this democratic instrument to strengthen the authoritarian regime. PhD defence 31 January.

Striga hermonthica, commonly known as witchweed, infests major cereal crops in Sub-Saharan Africa causing severe yield losses and threatening the livelihood of millions of resource poor farmers.

In this article, Gerrit Dijkstra and Jos Raadschelders from the Institute of Public Administration, argue that Bosnia-Herzegovina survives so far on the basis of negative legitimacy.

Promotor: Prof.dr. S. Haring

PURPOSE: The aim of the study was to develop a cheap and fast method to produce hollow microneedles and an applicator for injecting vaccines into the skin at a pre-defined depth and test the applicability of the system for dermal polio vaccination.

In the programme ‘Furthering Public Leadership’ the Leiden Leadership Centre has partnered with seven public organisations in researching and developing public leadership in practice.

For her bachelor’s thesis, Molecular Science and Technology student Madouc Bergers synthesized her own molecule that can inhibit the breakdown of sugars. Although most students do not even manage to make one building block, Madouc made three. Partly because of this, she has been nominated for the Science…

Which criteria do ED patients and therapists evaluate as most relevant for recovery? Do patients and therapists differ in their evaluations? Do eating disorder patients differ from a healthy control group in their scores on the Recovery Scale?

We found that, next to the effectiveness of the intervention, it’s also very likely that the intervention is cost-effective compared to attention only.

While many healthcare professionals indicate that they frequently use placebo effects and their mechanisms, there is little formal training on how to deal with placebo and nocebo effects in clinical practice. This project aims to address this gap between scientific knowledge on placebo and nocebo effects…

On 12 September 2019, Michiel Rhoen defended his thesis 'Big Data, Big Risks, Big Power Shifts: Evaluating the General Data Protection Regulation as an instrument of risk control and power redistribution in the context of big data'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. G.J. Zwenne and Prof.…

From Monday 21 August 2017 on, an access control will apply in Wijnhaven outside office hours.

We examine how soil inoculation influences aboveground organisms (i) directly, and indirectly via (ii) its effects on plant chemistry or volatile emission, or via (iii) mediating the effects of belowground pathogens on aboveground organisms via the shared plant.

Now and then we organise book launches to present the latest publications, both academic and popular, in our broad field.

Nematic liquid crystals form the key ingredients of most tv screens. The active version of these complex fluids forms a useful model for physicists to research the responses of active matter—like bacteria or traffic flows—to mechanical and geometrical cues. An international research team publishes their…

On 3 December 2018 Melanie Fink, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Europa Institute, spoke at the Conference ‘Managing Migration Through Criminal Law Tools’.

What is the effect of training children to exercise self-control? Niko Steinbeis has been awarded a major European subsidy to find the answer to this question. The innovative aspects of this research are the target group, an individual approach to the training and examining the child brain the scann…

Rigid materials break more easily than floppy ones. This simple observation allows to predict and control the width of cracks. Theoretical understanding of how materials break is useful in for example the production of cars or screens. Publication in PNAS.

How did the Arabs manage to maintain an empire based on Islamic principles for three hundred years? Arab expert Petra Sijpesteijn and her team will be examining this question over the coming five years, focusing on the correspondence of ordinary people. The research is being funded by an ERC Consolidator…

How did Fustat develop between 640 and 750 to become the capital of Egypt? At the time Egypt was a province of the Islamic empire - the caliphate - that had been started by the prophet Muhammad. Original sources used by Arabist Jelle Bruning give new insights into the city. PhD defence on 2 April.

Jorrit Rijpma responds in Dutch newspaper the Volkskrant to attention surrounding the reintroduction of border controls in the Schengen area.

In ancient times, the desert in the Udhruh region in Jordan was transformed into a green oasis. An intricate network of underground water channels was part of an ancient system of water management, storing water and preventing loss through evaporation. Archaeologist Mark Driessen found a new way to…

Lecture

The MCS group consists of five staff members, all of whom have a strong link to the Museums and Collections programme of the Faculty of Humanities and the Heritage and Museum programme of the Faculty of Archaeology.

What is nationalism and how can we study it from a historical perspective? Writing the History of Nationalism answers this question by examining eleven historical approaches to nationalism studies in theory and practice.

Nature, nurture and neural mechanisms of social emotion regulation in childhood

On 7 and 8 October, a two-day workshop will be hosted by the Van Vollenhoven Institute in collaboration with the University of Oxford’s Border Criminologies network and the Social Citizenship & Migration assisted area. The theme of the workshop will be ‘Border policing, boundary creation and emotion…

Researchers at Leiden University have demonstrated that tumours can apply mechanical means to attract the blood vessels they need to be able to grow. The team published this discovery on 2 March in Nature Scientific Reports.

Astronomers from Leiden University have discovered that the star wind from a newborn star in the Orion Nebula prevents more stars from forming in the immediate vicinity. They made the discovery with data from the SOFIA observatory. This was announced by co-author Xander Tielens during a press conference…

In its ruling this week, The Hague Court of Appeal made short work of how the Dutch Border Police allow the colour of a person’s skin to be taken into account when selecting people to check. According to Maartje van der Woude, this ruling reaches far beyond the border police. ‘This is a problem for…

A Jurist's Travelogue

Neil Young and Philosophy, edited by Douglas L. Berger, explores the meanings, importance, and philosophical dimensions of the music, career, and life of this prolific singer/songwriter over the past five decades.