Denmark, Poland and Germany are a few of the countries that have closed their borders, entirely or certain sections, in response to the continued advancement of coronavirus. Normally, this is only possible when there is a threat to public order or national security.

The Gravitation programme NETWORKS has been awarded a COFUND grant of 3 million euros. Half of this comes from the European Commission's Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, with industry partners paying the other half. Of the fourteen new PhD candidates, two will join Frank den Hollander's research…

The Dutch government will be unable to make wearing face masks mandatory in public spaces in the short term, according to three constitutional and administrative law experts in NRC newspaper, including Wim Voermans.

Recently, the University of Amsterdam was the scene of pro-Palestinian demonstrations that got out of hand. The demonstrators included rioters who wished to remain anonymous by wearing face coverings. Several experts, including Wim Voermans, Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law, spoke…

Employees are laying down their work in various sectors, such as regional public transportation and Dutch postal service PostNL. Inflation appears to be increasing dissatisfaction about working conditions, thinks Barend Barentsen, Professor in Labour Law at Leiden University. ‘It's the final straw.’

Leiden University has taken seventh place in the UI Green Metric, a global sustainability ranking for universities. Almost 1,000 universities from all over the world participate in the ranking.

On Tuesday evening 22 August, our very dear colleague Jo Hermans passed away. Jo had been ill for some time, but continued to enjoy life in good spirits until the very end. He meant a great deal to Leiden University and will be remembered with fond memories by many.

The whole world gets raw materials from Latin America, but at the expense of nature. Håvar Solheim researches the role of organised crime in this environmental crime and Soledad Valdivia researches sustainable urban initiatives in Latin America. What do these university lecturers think the future of…

How can we reduce CO2 emissions from industry? Leiden psychologists Emma Mors and Christine Boomsma are examining the public perception and acceptance around the capture and storage of carbon dioxide. This is part of the ALIGN CCUS European research programme.

White clouds of ice-cold gas flowing across the floor. Magical, but be careful not to freeze your fingers off. We are of course talking about liquid nitrogen and helium. You may have seen the spectacular Freezing Physics science show by the student organisation Rino. But did you know that this commodity…

Leiden chemists recreated the bacterial capsule of meningococcus in the lab. With a few modifications, these capsules can serve as an extra safe and effective vaccine against these notorious bacteria, which can cause, for example, meningitis. PhD candidate Jacopo Enotarpi and his team published the…

Due to gaps in working conditions regulations, airline pilots and crew are suffering from fatigue and inadequate protection in general. Leiden PhD student Yuran Shi investigated how international law can help improve working conditions and safety in the aviation sector.

Producing offspring of a crop without sowing and that is even bigger than the parent plant. According to Leiden researchers this can be achieved by overstimulating a single gene that rejuvenates cells, including bringing them back to the embryonic phase.

In 2019 the ENIS Spring School takes place in Granada from 18 March until 22 March 2019. The Spring School will be organized by ENIS (the European Network for Islamic Studies), consisting of: CNMS (Marburg University), CSIC (Institute of Languages and Cultures of the Mediterranean and Escuela de Estudios…

‘It was a discovery we did not expect,’ says Remko Offringa, professor of Plant developmental genetics. Today he publishes a new trait of a versatile gene in Current Biology: it makes the difference in plants between herbaceous and woody stem growth. A useful feature to prevent dehydration.

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded chemist Dr Alexander Kros a Starting Independent Researcher Grant of 1.4 million euro. He will be using the grant to study how molecules penetrate the natural barrier of a cell membrane. If his research is successful, it will in time bring about a revolution…

In some university restaurants and cafés, you can already order them and, come January, you can enjoy them everywhere: the Pure products. Sustainable, healthy and/or vegetarian. The beautiful lime green, also the colour of the plates and bowls, is the vibrant symbol of these products. And Pure is even…

In this new column, colleagues share stories and experiences about working and living abroad. The first story is written by Marie-Agnes Dittrich, guest lecturer at the Institute for History. She is a musicologist at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Below, she tells about her experience…

Within 20 years, intelligent machines will play a major role in society. ‘Selfdriving cars will be 90% safer than human-driven cars and will change transportation globally,’ says artificial intelligence scientist Bart Selman of Cornell University. He gave the first Ada Lovelace lecture of the Leiden…

Just like us, plants also produce growth hormones, and they also go through an ageing process. The study of the genes and mechanisms behind these processes is useful not only for crop breeding and agriculture, but also for medical research. That is the view held by Professor of Plant Developmental Genetics…

A new 5.7 million euro research project will ensure that lettuce will be more resistant to pathogens and climate effects and will grow better in new cultivation systems. Together with other Dutch researchers, Leiden biologists will map the characteristics and genetic information of 500 wild and cultivated…

On Thursday 16 November 2017 Thomas Leclerc will defend his PhD Dissertation ‘A Corrective Approach to Reduce Aircraft Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Contribution to the Study of Interactions between Legal Orders of International Law’. The defence will commence at 13.45 hrs, at the Academy Building of Leiden…

The perfect ship is light and sleek for speed, but also needs to be strong and stable for safe sailing. These and other conflicting requirements make it difficult, even with a supercomputer, to find the ideal design. Computer scientist Roy de Winter has developed an algorithm that helps strike the perfect…

The Faculty of Science has reinforced the collaboration in China during a group trip late November. Representatives from four institutes visited ten Chinese top universities and interviewed over 130 students in PhD workshops in Beijing and Shanghai.

The Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has reappointed Dr. Fang Liu of China by acclamation today as Secretary General of the UN Specialized Agency for a second three-year term, beginning 1 August 2018.

The Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has reappointed Dr. Fang Liu of China by acclamation today as Secretary General of the UN Specialized Agency for a second three-year term, beginning 1 August 2018.

A wide range of metals need to be mined for solar panels, wind turbines and batteries. But the overall mining activity is set to decrease as clean energy replaces fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas.

Prof.dr.ir. Hai-Xiang Lin is appointed on 1 March 2015 as part-time professor on Data Analytics for Environmental Modelling at CML on behalf of the R. Timman foundation. He will join the CML-department of Industrial Ecology. He has a position at the Department of Applied Mathematics at the Faculty…

The Dutch Minister for Infrastructure and Watermanagement Cora van Nieuwenhuizen has offered the first copy of the book ‘Behind and Beyond the Chicago Convention: The Evolution of Aerial Sovereignty’ to the Secretary-General of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

UNPLASTIC, a research project by Leiden University College The Hague (LUC) won the Dopper Changemaker Challenge 2019. LUC student Roos Kolkman represented UNPLASTIC during the semi-finals on Saturday.

Professor Michiel Kreutzer has been appointed as Dean of the Faculty of Science at Leiden University. He will take up the role on 1 January 2020. At present, he is Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering and Director of Education at the Faculty of Applied Sciences at Delft University of Technology.…

The transition from Middle to Upper Paleolithic is a major biological and cultural threshold in the construction of our common humanity. Technological and behavioral changes happened simultaneously to a major climatic cooling, forcing human populations to develop new strategies for the exploitation…

Nusantara Capital Authority (OIKN), which is in charge of developing Indonesia’s new capital city entered a Memorandum of Understanding with Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities on 18 March on knowledge sharing and joint research.

The Directorate-General for the Environment of the European Commission has granted the project entitled “Initiating A Public Dialogue on Environment Protection in the Context of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) Negotiations” to a consortium led by The Institute for European…

The Kikkoman chair is a new chair in Leiden sponsored by the Kikkoman Foundation and the Association of Friends of Asiatic Art. The chair will address the intercultural dynamics of Asia and Europe.

On November 12, dean prof. Willem J.H. Willems was elected as one of the twelve members of the European Union’s academic committee Joint Programming Initiative Cultural Heritage and Global Change.

Electrons that spin synchronously around their axis, turn out to stay superconducting across large distances within magnetic chromium dioxide. Electric current from these electrons can flip small magnets, and its superconducting version could form the basis for a hard drive without energy loss. Publication…

On 22 January 2018, the Massive Open Online Course ’A Circular Economy of Metals: Towards a Sustainable Societal Metabolism’ kicks off. This course is developed and taught by associate professor Ester van der Voet.

In a new article in the journal Scientific Reports, Leiden archaeologist Wei Chu and colleagues report on recent excavations in Western Romania at the site of Româneşti, one of the most important sites in southeastern Europe associated with the earliest Homo sapiens. The site gives an important glimpse…

On 26 April Professor of Experimental Physics Jan van Ruitenbeek was made a Knight in the Order of the Lion of the Netherlands. He received the decoration from mayor Emile Jaensch in Oegstgeest, where he lives. Van Ruitenbeek received the honour for his services to physics.

Professor of Radiology Andrew Webb and his collaborative partner Johnes Obungoloch from Uganda have won the 2023 Huibregtsen Prize.

On 13 and 14 October 70 first-year students of the MSc in International Relations and Diplomacy had the opportunity to visit several European Union institutions in Brussels.

STM scanning experiments on poorly conducting materials are challenging, and can cause a distortion effect. A new model corrects for this effect, allowing physicists to better study materials in their quest to understand unconventional superconductivity. Publication in Physical Review B as Editor’s…

Leiden physicist Milan Allan and his group have discovered an apparent paradox within a material that has zero electrical resistance. They measured trapped charges, while charges should in theory keep flowing in the absence of resistance. The discovery could provide a missing piece of one of the big…

Steven Truxal joins Leiden University as Professor of Air and Space Law on 1 December 2020. Truxal holds a BA in International Affairs with concentrations in international law and economics from The George Washington University, Washington, DC (USA), an LLM in International Commercial Law with focus…

The Sustainable 100 is an initiative by Dutch newspaper Trouw, consisting of a list of the top 100 sustainable civil initiatives. In October of 2020, the Jonge Klimaatbeweging (Youth Climate Movement NL) became the first youth organization to win first prize. An interview with LUC Alumna and Board Member…

Recent publications

From energy transition to the nitrogen crisis: artificial intelligence can be of great help. Researchers from the three universities in Zuid-Holland are seizing the opportunity. Three of them talk about collaborative research in the AI for Energy and Sustainability focus group within the Zuid-Holland…

An article by Bert Fraussen, Adria Albareda, Caelesta Braun, Moritz Muller & Erin Sullivan, published as a three-part blog series.