Historiography of science is in its current self-image a non-evaluative discipline. Its main goal is to understand past processes of knowledge formation on their own terms. In the last few decades this approach has greatly improved our understanding of the phenomenon of science. Yet, something strange…

In this thesis, the research focuses on the properties of dark matter and dark matter haloes and how they connect with the galaxies we can observe in the Universe.

This dissertation provides a novel perspective on the interaction between quantifier scope and ellipsis. It presents a detailed investigation of the scopal interaction between English negative indefinites, modals, and quantified phrases in ellipsis. One of the crucial observations is that a negative…

What are the biological effects of Chinese herbal medicine in regulation of cancer cell metastasis?

Mechanical forces are known to play an important role in bacterial colonies. In this dissertation, we study the self-organization at various stages of growing bacterial colonies, and focus on the mechanical effects of cell growth.

On Thursday 20 May 2021, Tania Li delivered the annual Van Vollenhoven Lecture.

Sharia Incorporated: A Comparative Overview of the Legal Systems of Twelve Muslim Countries in Past and Present

Before the large scale use of renewable energy sources can be implemented in our society, the storage of electrical energy needs to be tackled. Storage the energy as hydrogen via the reduction of protons is a good option.

Edited by linguists Jenny Audring (Leiden University) and Francesca Masini (University of Bologna), this is a unique handbook with a focus on morphology theories rather than morphological data. It covers a wide array of morphological theories, from traditional twentieth century models to current theoretical…

Ms. Monica Klasing Chen defended her thesis on 16 December 2020

Promotor: Prof.dr. A.G.G.M. Tielens, Co-Promotor: J.B.R. Oonk

During embryonic growth, cells proliferate, differentiate, and collectively migrate to form different tissues at the right position and time in the body.

Promotores: Prof.dr. J. Zaanen & Prof.dr. K.E. Schalm

This dissertation provides a grammatical description of Ghomara Berber, a Berber language spoken in North-West Morocco by about 10.000 people. The grammar consists of a description of the phonology, the morphology and the syntax. In the appendices a number of texts and a wordlist are included. The data…

In this study I explore literary structures of identity-formation in the works of assimilated/acculturated Jewish writers: Kafka’s novella “The Metamorphosis” (“Die Verwandlung”, 1912) and David Vogel’s Hebrew novel Married Life. 1929).

Legitimacy is generally a term that is associated with the state. The term surfaces when there are problems with state legitimacy—when it is lacking or absent. This present volume attempts to think through the relevance of the concept of legitimacy for other political actors than the state.

The refereeing process is anonymous. It is important, therefore, that all submissions conform to the above guidelines. The referees’ comments will, at the Editor’s discretion, be passed on to the corresponding author.

The Brazilian economy has long been defined by its enormous potential. Over the past 30 years, some of this has at last been realised. Latin America’s largest economy has rapidly risen in global importance while poverty at home has declined. Yet, despite periods of progress, Brazil remains prone to…

This thesis explores the theoretical and observational properties of distant massive galaxies that harbour active black holes in their centres and shine brightly at radio wavelengths.

My PhD project studies how the temporally sequential Hox gene expression is regulated during head-tail patterning of the frog embryo.

Everyone can study at Leiden University, at all stages of life: as undergraduate, master or doctoral students in Leiden or The Hague, or short courses with a choice of interesting and diverse subjects. In fact, by sitting in front of a computer at home, now you also take part in free online programs…

The genetic information of all living organisms is contained in their DNA. Cells modify the degree of DNA compaction by epigenetics, which largely determines what genes are read out and which genes are transcriptionally silent.

In this thesis, the discovery and optimization is described of chemical tools to study the N-acylethanolamine (NAE) biosynthetic pathway.

Throughout all domains of life, from bacteria and archaea to eukaryotes, genomes adopt well-organized three-dimensional structures that can change in space and time to accommodate preferred transcriptional programs for environmental adaptation, the maintenance of cellular identity and differentiation…

Emphasizing on the key role of polysemy in forming the lexicon is the main goal to be achieved in this dissertation paper. The paper suggests a qualitative evaluation of polysemy in comparing it with other relations that form the lexicon. The research confirms that the polysemic links must not be modeled…

This project examines how speakers store and process regular pitch variation.

On 5 September, Elize de Mul defended the thesis 'Digital Döppelgangers: identity in the Culture of Imagination'. The doctoral research was supervised by Simone van der Hof and Esther Keymolen.

Investigation of 1.) The whereabouts of the epistemological dissonances in art criticisms on Post-war contemporary art from Japan between two different language realms, in this case in English and Japanese; and 2.) What the dissonances disclose, disturb, and contribute in the process of the establishment…

In the Catalysis and Surface Chemistry group, we investigate how catalysis works on the molecular level. The group is divided in six subgroups, focusing on different aspects of heterogeneous catalysis, homogeneous catalysis and electrocatalysis.

This dissertation provides a description of the language Tadaksahak as it is spoken by the Idaksahak, a people group of about 30,000 living in the most eastern part of Mali and several isolated places in western Niger.

Attitudes towards cultural heritage have long been characterised by an ‘endangerment sensibility’ concerned with preventing losses. Recently, however, critical heritage scholars have argued that loss can be generative, facilitating the formation of new values and attachments. Their arguments have focused…

The Uses of Justice in Global Perspective, 1600–1900 presents a new perspective on the uses of justice between 1600 and 1900 and confronts prevailing Eurocentric historiography in its examination of how people of this period made use of the law.

The research presented in this thesis makes use of small molecules (as H2 , D2 and O2 ) on well-defined single crystal surfaces (flat Pt(111), flat Cu(211) and curved Pt(111)) to elucidate the role of surface structure and degrees of freedom in the reactant in specific surface reactions.

Our research deals with the deep history of Europe and Eurasia, from the inception of farming up until the beginning of the Roman Period. This was a period in which key developments took place that had a profound impact on European landscapes and society until the present day. Our research and teaching…

In the last decade, the redox interconversion between metal thiolate and disulfide compounds has been extensively investigated for copper, but not for other transition metal ions.

Despite the fact that gold nanoparticles (GNPs) are one of the most studied nanoparticles, there is still a necessity for new approaches allowing for effective protective coating to enable wider use of GNPs in biomedical applications.

Arab Identity and the Rise of Islam

Subproject of

This PhD-thesis analyses the relationship between the parties’ choices in the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis’ assessments of the election manifestos and coalition agreements over the period 1986-2017, and tries to explain this relationship.

On May 23rd, Ernanda succesfully defended her doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Ernanda on this great result.

The aim of the project is the development of polypept(o)ide-based delivery systems to use siRNA as systemic applicated therapeutic agent against e.g. solid tumors

Particles are omnipresent in biopharmaceutical products. In protein-based therapeutics such particles are generally associated with impurities, either derived from the drug product itself (e.g. protein aggregates), or from extrinsic contaminations (e.g. cellulose fibers).

In this thesis, we used genetically engineered mouse models and a variety of cell-culture based assays to identify genes and pathways that are involved in the development and treatment of invasive lobular carcinoma (ILC).

Promotor: Prof.dr. H.J.A. Rottgering, Co-promotor: David Sobral

Muge Özoglu defended her dissertation on 5 December 2018

Despite the history of studies on methanol formation from CO2, the dominant elementary reaction steps that constitute the chemical mechanism for this catalyzed process are not determined.

All research at Leiden University is organised into institutes. To do justice to the wide spectrum of research (and consequently teaching) that comes from these, you will find descriptions of all the Leiden institutes on these pages.

Dark matter is one of the biggest mysteries of the Universe. Its properties cannot be explained with the known laws of physics and elementary particles.

A large diversity of exoplanetary systems has been found, but it is still unclear what drives this diversity.