Like ants, termites and bees, some bacteria work together as a multicellular group. There is a strict division of labour in such colonies, to make the group more resilient to the outside world. Now researchers have found that some parts of the bacterial colony can take ‘for the greater good’ to a whole…

The CMCB comprises research groups from the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC) and the Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC).

Herman Spaink knows of many substances that may help combat tuberculosis. Lab space to study them safely is very limited in Leiden. A brand-new lab at Universitas Gadjah Mada in Indonesia will soon provide a solution. About time, says Spaink, ‘The disease is on the rise and is becoming less sensitive…

The Project “Excellence in science and innovation for Europe by adopting the concept of Responsible Research and Innovation (NewHoRRIzon)” sets out to promote the acceptance of RRI in Horizon 2020 (H2020) and beyond. It will work out the conceptual and operational basis to fully integrate RRI into European…

The specialisation Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences and Industrial Pharmacy consists of 60 EC in Bio-Pharmaceutical Sciences and 60 EC in Industrial Pharmacy.

Research facilities within reach of LIBC members:

Do you have a project that will benefit from analytical skills or knowledge of science and business? Do you want to tap into talented graduate students and test-drive potential employees? Are you looking for temporary management support? Do you want to offer motivated science students the opportunity…

People who have negative expectations about a treatment actually experience more pain. Merve Karacaoglu discovered in her PhD research that anxious and pessimistic individuals are particularly susceptible to this nocebo effect. However, this sensitivity comes with a silver lining.

Researchers at LIACS are working to devise the computers of tomorrow that will be the backbone of the Cloud and Edge computing paradigms as well as the Internet of Things. In this respect, we are involved in research and development of high performance computing systems, embedded & real-time computing…

Researchers at LIACS are working to devise the computers of tomorrow that will be the backbone of the Cloud and Edge computing paradigms as well as the Internet of Things. In this respect, we are involved in research and development of high performance computing systems, embedded & real-time computing…

How do we process language and speech? How do we integrate information at different levels – intonation, sentence structure, meaning, tone, words, sounds - and how does information at one level interact with information at another level?

Leiden students often prefer complicated theory and a difficult test to experiments. Yet associate professor Paul Logman believes students learn a lot from practical teaching. He challenges his students to come up with their research questions themselves. The Leiden Institute of Physics (LION) is at…

Research master student Linda Bomm found in her thesis that men, compared to women, believe female sexual assault survivors less, blame women more, and judge them more negatively – especially if they identify strongly with their male gender.

The Academic Language Centre is part of the Leiden University Centre for Linguistics (LUCL) and provides language services to students and staff of Leiden University and the Leiden University Medical Centre.

Can we truly assess whether someone finds us attractive? Cognitive psychologist Iliana Samara conducted her PhD project on romantic attraction and discovered that men, in particular, tend to overestimate the interest of their date. She explains why this may be.

Acute stress seems to have a surprisingly positive effect on our health. Researcher Erin Faught received an NWO veni grant to find out why that is and how we can use that knowledge to our advantage. For her lab research, she uses a remarkable small animal to learn more about our own stress levels.

The Liveable Planet programme assists scientists and local communities in taking up a collective responsibility to develop in a sustainable way. This is done together with a lot of scientist from various disciplines.

Drug development is a complex process in which many parties work together. Every day, the researchers at LACDR devote their energies to developing drugs that are new, better, more efficient and easier to produce. And thus to the millions of patients who know all too well why this research in Leiden…

This weeks marks the 10th anniversary of the European Research Council. For the past decade, the council has contributed to many scientific projects all over Europe, including Leiden University. It has funded almost 7,000 researchers, leading to just short of 100,000 scientific articles. A total of…

CitiObs will consolidate and apply tools and practice-based knowledge for co-creating data, knowledge and local action regarding the environmental impacts of climate change and human activity in the urban context via Citizen Observatories.

The Netherlands has also announced special measures to fight SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. These measures have at times caused questionable behaviour, such as stockpiling or charging exorbitant sums for masks. But the intentions behind this seemingly antisocial behaviour are not necessarily bad, says Professor…

Higher education research improves the quality of education. And these investments more than pay for themselves in terms of well-being and prosperity. This is what Professor of Education Science Roeland van der Rijst will say in his inaugural lecture.

Psychologists Anna van ‘t Veer and Eiko Fried will start a scientific integrity workshop tour after the summer, called Responsible Scholarship: Psychology. Their aim: giving the subject a more prominent position in the academic’s mind.

This academic year Maxim Allaart will hold the position of assessor within the Faculty Board of the Faculty of Science. The assessor is a student member who represents the students’ interests within the Faculty Board.

On Friday 30 November 2018 more than 70 students became acquainted with the large range of companies that Leiden Bio Science Park has to offer. In addition to the companies with eye-catching façade names along the cycling route to the faculty, like CHDR, BaseClear and Astellas, there is much more to…

The sand on European beaches may look pristine, but in every kilogram of sand there are on average 250 microplastics: fragments smaller than 5mm. These results are part of a study from Leiden researchers with the help of beach-goers throughout Europe.

Lecture

The theme of the Opening of the Academy Year on 4 September was sustainability and how the university could take the lead as a change agent. How is it going about this and what else can it do? There was also room for a critical note.

In the eighteenth century, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) housed its enslaved people on ‘Slave Island’ in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. Today ‘Slave Island’ is under serious threat from property developers. Senior lecturer Alicia Schrikker, together with her Sri Lankan colleagues Iromi Perera…

Happy students and proud families, friends and lecturers; on 13 July the first fifteen refugee students graduated from the Preparatory Year for teaching in Leiden. They started a programme in September at a Dutch university of applied sciences or an academic university. 'This is just the start!'

On the 19th of May 2020, our dear colleague and friend Professor Dr. Huib Ovaa has passed away from prostate cancer. Last summer Huib became ill, and in first instance it appeared that he had attracted a relatively harmless infectious disease. Unfortunately, it became soon apparent that he suffered…

Donororganen zijn er nooit genoeg. De organen die wel beschikbaar zijn, moeten vliegensvlug getransplanteerd worden. De geneeskunde zet daarom volop in op het langer goedhouden van organen. Marlon de Haan (24) onderzoekt hoe je nieren buiten het lichaam in leven kunt houden.

Study information

What started as an idea during a social gathering led to an unexpected breakthrough in research on resistant bacteria. Biologists and chemists from Leiden developed a new substance that proves to be effective against bacteria resistant to antibiotics. They published their discovery in Nature Chemist…

On 12 January ten driven lecturers obtained their Senior Teaching Qualification (SKO). Rector Magnificus Hester Bijl congratulated them in the Academy Building. We asked three of them how the SKO programme had benefitted them, what they think ‘good teaching’ is and what makes them so passionate about…

People who are often stressed can feel calmer by making certain adjustments to their breathing. Possibly this also positively affects concentration and attention. Psychologist Roderik Gerritsen studied the effects of breathing differently for the first time, and explains them. Gerritsen receives his…

Scholars from the field of science, technology and innovation (STI) policy have often questioned whether there was substantive difference between international STI policy and science diplomacy. This is hard to answer, but at least we can observe that science diplomacy has had great appeal over the last…

LCN2 organizes seminars on the last Friday of each month.

Lecture

YAL raises its voice on policy matters.

The biweekly Lunch Time Seminar is an online only event, but it is not publicly accessible in real-time. If you would like to attend one of the upcoming sessions, please send an email to sails@liacs.leidenuniv.nl.