With a pioneering project like the quantum computer, it’s a good idea not to place all your bets on a single horse. In Leiden’s Quantum Optics research group, instead of working on a Majorana-based qubit, people are working on a qubit based on an ‘artificial atom’. If that becomes the basis of the quantum…

IT lawyer Eduard Fosch Villaronga wants to promote diversity and inclusiveness in AI research. And that's really important, because he has observed how artificial intelligence - from Twitter to walking robots - is prejudice in terms of race, gender and sexual orientation.

This Leiden Law School page provides various information on Diversity & Inclusion at the faculty. It explains why D&I are key objectives, lists our current D&I projects, and outlines the faculty’s plans for improvements in these areas.

We’re delighted to announce our plenary speakers.

Impressions by Oene de Haan - PhD candidate at Utrecht University.

Demonstration experiments are a potentially powerful instrument to improve the micro-macro thinking of students in secondary education. Therefore we want to design a practical and generative approach to assist teachers to develop lessons with a demonstration experiment.

Through this research, we aim to gain a clear understanding of perceptions of safety in Leiden. The results will provide us with information about current perceptions. As Leiden’s City Criminologist Marianne Franken explains: ‘This research really focuses on Leiden’s residents. That’s why want to ask…

Knowing how to resolve global problems is one thing, but how do you make sure that it actually happens? That’s the real challenge, because there are powerful movements everywhere that want to reconstruct the walls of nation states. In an attempt to resolve this issue, Leiden researchers are experimenting…

In the future, physicians may be able to identify dementia much earlier than they can today because a computer algorithm will be able to predict from brain scans how our memory is going to develop.

How can we quantify the density of species within a community through environmental DNA concentrations?

LIACS organizes different lectures and colloquia, like the Florence Nightingale Colloquium, LCN2 Seminars, the Ada Lovelace Distinguished Lecture Series and the OTICS Colloquium.

The Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) is an internationally oriented institute for research and education in biology. We are part of the Faculty of Science at Leiden University.

Even a small quantum computer should be able to simulate exactly the properties and behaviour of new molecules. This would take chemistry to an entirely new level. Better solar panels, more powerful batteries, saving lots of energy in the chemical industry: the applications have the potential to transform…

What is the optimal investment policy according to which a firm adapts its capacity in a competitive market?

PACES is an innovative, inter-disciplinary and multi-level research project that asks, How do changes in society, individual life experiences and migration policy shape decisions to stay or to migrate over time and across countries? And how can this knowledge inform future migration policies and gov…

What workflow of non-destructive techniques provides accurate, valuable data to improve our understanding of Caribbean archaeological landscapes? How were Amerindian settlements configured?

Baroque flautist Jed Wentz followed two years of dancing classes in order to develop the right feeling for the gestures required for the Baroque French opera genre ‘tragédie en musique’. In his dissertation, the links between gesture affect and rhythmic freedom in the performance of the tragédie en…

At Leiden Observatory, researchers investigate the origin of stars and their planetary systems. They detect and characterize planets around other stars (exoplanets). They study how stars and planets form. And they follow molecules from interstellar clouds to nascent planet systems. This way they address…

Composer Paul Craenen (1972) is actually a pianist, but as part of his PhD ceremony, he performed a composition on PVC pipes. Craenen studies the position and role of the body in music. ‘I am interested in what precedes the resulting sound’.

Which teacher did an outstanding job in not only transferring knowledge in novel ways but also in getting students enthusiastic and connecting a course to current research themes? Meet the nominees for the Teacher of the Year Award 2023!

The Immune Activation and Tolerance group is headed by Dr. Bram Slütter. Vaccination is an experimental, but promising, treatment strategy for atherosclerosis. Previous work has shown that immunization of mice with modified LDL particles can reduce atherosclerotic lesion development, however such vaccines…

Media & interaction is where artificial intelligence and machine learning meet philosophy, cognitive science, and the creative arts. Examples of research questions in this domain are: 'Can an algorithm be creative by human standards?', 'Can creative processes, such as composing music or writing poetry,…

This project aims to contribute to the improvement of documentation and archiving standards (conform the FAIR principles) for systematic Mediterranean archaeological field survey.

SAILS is a Leiden university wide initiative aiming to facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

We explore the possibilities to combine magnetic resonance techniques with atomic force microscopy together in a single microscope: the MRI-AFM, also called Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy (MRFM).

Hybrid zones occur where two species meet and produce offspring (hybrids). Typically, hybrids show a considerable reduction in fitness. In this thesis two hybrid zones are treated.

The central theme of the NWO-project ‘The Promise of Organization’ is the evolution of political organization during the 19th century. We focus on the enthusiasm, arguments and concrete activities of the organizers as well as the criticism offered by opponents of modern political organization.

Impressions by Wouter Baas and Caroline Schep

This project embarks on empirical analysis of popular psycho-physical practices in contemporary Korea.

In STAYAHEAD data-intensive approaches are being developed to ”decode the human immunome” with a focus on a global vaccine strategy. They have developed a rapid mass spectrometric test to analyse in real-time large numbers of variants of SARS-CoV-2 and the host immune response, and use these data to…

Natural resources are becoming increasingly scarce. If we want to maintain our current standard of living, we will need inventive solutions. The researchers at the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) share their thoughts on how to achieve a fully circular economy in which as little use as possible…

Researchers have the whole world as their work area. Dutch researchers collaborate with Chinese, Australians give lectures in Lithuania, Koreans move to America and back. Who can contribute to academic knowledge, who benefits from it and who pays for it? A fair and effective system for this has not…

Information about the situation in Ukraine

Grammatical gender is famously the most puzzling of the grammatical categories. We have a solid typology of gender systems, yet exciting and unexpected patterns keep turning up which defy easy classification and straightforward analysis. Some of these question, stretch or threaten to cross the outer…

Do selenium nanoparticles in fish food cause subtle alterations in behavior of fish: effect of particles size and concentration?

We aim to provide new insights relating to the spectacular multi-cellular life cycle of streptomycetes and other actinobacteria.

During your PhD, you make agreements with your supervisors concerning your personal development and the supervision you receive. No later than three months after the start of your appointment, these agreements should be recorded in a Training and Supervision Plan (TSP). External PhD candidates must…

The energy transition is a complex transformation process that is not only about technology -moving towards renewable energy sources-, but even more so about societal and institutional change. The energy transition requires and provides opportunities for actors to take on new roles.

Beginning teachers often experience difficulties making activating lessons. This study investigates how and if the practical teaching model can offer them a hand in learning to design lessons.

What is the effectiveness of (booklet or online) self-help programmes for people with somatic stressors and depressive symptoms? What works best for whom? How to improve motivation and adherence?

This project tries to explain the persistence of this cultural repertoire by zooming in on (1) interaction between idioms (cultural repertoires) available to scholars at certain points in time, (2) mechanisms that help transmit repertoires across time and place, and (3) rhetorical purposes for which…

At the Leiden Curious Minds Centre, our research focuses on the relationship of exploratory behaviour and discovery learning to curiosity and the way children regulate their behaviour and emotions. We want to improve our understanding of how children can and do become more and more the captain of their…

The WARN project seeks to understand why certain warnings fail to reach and impact decision makers in time to avert crisis.

How do common marmosets combine their calls into sequences and how are their vocalisations influenced by reproductive state?

All languages use melody in speech, primarily via rises and falls of the pitch of voice. Such pitch variation is pervasive, offering a wide spectrum of nuance to sentences – an additional layer of meaning. For example, saying “yes” with a rising pitch implies a question (rather than an affirmation).…

How can cell wall engineering approaches be used to improve streptomycetes for industry to make new antibiotics?

Online platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter) have become part and parcel of everyday media use. Journalists incorporate posts from politicians into newspaper reports, scientists share their insights in short posts or videos, and the judiciary uses social media to explain their…

Leiden alumni find work in all kinds of interesting places. We gather the stories of our alumni and publish then regularly in our alumni newsletter and in Leidraad magazine. You can find all their stories on this page. They give a good impression of what life is like for Leiden alumni after they have…