Leiden University is involved in five new NWO Gravitation projects. Two relate to mental disorder and the remaining three to a healthy lifestyle, the combination of human and artificial intelligence, and the special relationship between plants and microbes.

To facilitate the search for new antibiotics. That is the aim of Gilles van Wezel, professor molecular biotechnology at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL). He wants to do this by looking at similarities in the DNA of antibiotic-producing bacteria. Van Wezel has been awarded an ERC Advanced grant…

Is polder rice a feasible circular alternative to cows on peat soil? In May, an experimental trial began, with researchers from Leiden University and Wageningen University & Research (WUR) planting around 3,000 rice plants at the Polderlab near Leiden. The researchers aimed to test rice as a middle…

Five researchers from Leiden University have been awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). This grant of on average 1.5m euros enables researchers who show potential to start their own project, lead a research team and implement their best ideas.

Just about everything that's known about Charles Darwin has already been said or written. Even so, Norbert Peeters – together with Tessa van Dijk – has managed to write an original book about the great English scholar. In the run-up to Darwin Day (12 February) he tells us about his new book.

Herman Boerhaave (1668 - 1738) is generally known to have been a dedicated doctor and chemist. However, the significant role he played in botany is less well documented, according to Margreet Wesseling. So she decided to write about about Boerhaave the botanist to mark the 350th anniversary of his birth…

In this project we investigate how the professional development around the theme of inquiry based teaching of teachers from three international schools takes place.

Knowledge and culture subproject 1:

‘Working in Leiden is a dream come true.’ Ákos Kovács studied in his birth country Hungary and worked in Germany, Denmark and Groningen. As professor of Microbiome Ecology at IBL, he immediately started working together with his new colleagues to make discoveries about the versatile bacterial species…

On Wednesday 4 September, Queen Máxima opened the renovated tropical greenhouse complex of the Leiden Hortus Botanicus, an event that attracted wide public interest. Thanks to this renovation, the greenhouses are even better equipped for scientific research.

Is polder rice a feasible circular alternative for cows on peatland? A pilot experiment started this week. On May 22nd, researchers from Leiden University and Wageningen University & Research (WUR) planted roughly 3,000 rice plants on the Polderlab near Leiden. The researchers want to test rice as a…

Majid Khan, born and raised in Pakistan, left his wife and daughter behind to do research in Leiden. After obtaining his PhD, the Netherlands has taken a special place in his heart. ‘Biking in the rain and wind was weird. But I loved it.’

On Saturday October 16, the special exhibition ‘Shared Sky: Canvases of the Universe’ opens in the Old Observatory in Leiden. The exhibit takes a cultural look at the starry sky by Aboriginal Australian and South African artists, and features colorful artwork that explores how these Indigenous cultures…

Galaxies are often found in clusters, which contain many “red and dead” members that stopped forming stars in the distant past. Now, an international team of astronomers, led by Andra Stroe of Leiden Observatory and David Sobral of Leiden and the University of Lisbon, has discovered that these comatose…

On 16 January student Lisa Bruil from the Institute of Biology Leiden was awarded the annual prize from the Stichting Prof. dr. K. Bakker-Fonds for her outstanding results as BSc-student.

A team of researchers at the Institute of Biology Leiden, in collaboration with scientists from Utrecht University, has discovered a novel approach to improve the production of antibiotics and enzymes in the soil bacteria Streptomycetes.

What is the impact of humans on nature? In Science an article appeared in which researchers try to give an answer to that question. Biogeographer and postdoc at LUCL Sietze Norder is one of its authors.

The new book of Professor of Character evolution and biodiversity Menno Schilthuizen gained a lot of media attention. ‘Darwin comes to town – how the urban jungles drives evolution’ was published in English in February and will be available in Dutch soon.

Skilful watercolours by botanical painter Esmée Winkel, anatomical flower models and the odd stunning real orchid. In the Extraordinary Orchids exhibition at Oude UB, the Hortus botanicus shows us the wonderful world of the orchid.

What is Leiden University doing to reduce energy consumption and move away from fossil energy? Where can you find information about energy? And what changes can you make yourself?

On Wednesday the 4th of September, Queen Máxima opened the renovated tropical greenhouse complex of the Leiden Hortus Botanicus. At the occasion Máxima met with IBL-PhD student Mahin Ghorbani from Iran and talked with her about her work on drug discovery from Iranian medicinal plants using zebrafish…

Fishing a bike out of the frozen canal, stunningsunsets over Leiden and four plants that flowered for the first time in sixty years in the Hortus Botanicus: this was our year in nine Facebook posts!

The carnivore diet, a fact or just a trend?

Masses of hamburgers, steaks, cheese and a lot of eggs: Americans love their animal products. But researcher Oliver Taherzadeh discovered that only a relatively small group of high-volume consumers need to modify their diet to achieve an enormous environmental gain.

For the 10th SAR conference on Artistic Research, the Society for Artistic Research (SAR) is back in Switzerland where the society was founded.

This project involves research into the oeuvre of the Sundanese sculptor Iko, who has worked for the Catholic mission in Java and has carved sculptures for a chapel and church in Ganjuran. The images were designed by the Catholic layman Jos Schmutzer and are characterized by a fusion in style and symbolism…

A delegation from Leiden University visited Japan from 18 to 26 November to facilitate cooperation in research and teaching. The delegation also attended the signing of a twinning agreement between the cities of Leiden and Nagasaki and the opening of a bridge to Dejima, once literally the bridge between…

Although there is considerable evidence that nature in the city is beneficial to both people and animals, we still do not have an overall picture of those benefits. To rectify that, a Leiden PhD candidate and a student – armed with a cargo bike – are using The Hague as a life-size laboratory.

We have to do all we can to stop climate change. But: the Earth is more resilient than we thought. That is the surprising conclusion of an international team of ecologists and mathematicians, which included Leiden mathematician Arjen Doelman. The team discovered that ecosystems can still avoid tipping…

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Leiden’s Institute for History has an exceptionally strong expertise in premodern European history in its global context, with specialists whose interests cover virtually the whole continent. We have a strong track record in leading larger research teams and work together with colleagues across Europe…

The WIIS-NL blog provides articles on gendered international security issues taking a multi-disciplinary approach which includes but is not limited to WIIS focus areas. This blog aims to reach a broad audience of academics, practitioners, students, and interested members of the general public.

To what extent can contingent, formative feedback in lectures, facilitated by web-based ICT, increase students’ self-efficacy and (academic, behavioral, and cognitive) engagement? And how are self-efficacy and engagement influencing students’ performance and course evaluations?

Lecture, Global Questions Seminar

This dissertation together with the artworks documented in it is the result of an investigation across multiple media over a seven-year period of the cultural, artistic and spiritual legacy of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Lebensreform (Life Reform) movement.

Explore an interactive i-doc platform for virtual navigation of ethnographically investigated case studies in Gdańsk, Turin, and Rotterdam.

In July 2022, Leiden hosted the ESOF conference.

Shafa’Atussara Silahudin defended her theses on 18 May 2021.

We perform multidisciplinary research at molecular, cellular, and organismal levels of animal biology to increase fundamental understanding of health and disease.

Twenty years from now, the world population is estimated to be around 9 billion people (now 8 billion). In combination with the improvements in living standards and the corresponding growth in consumption, this population will result in an enormous increase in the demand for food, consumables, water…

The project will clarify that in the search for these new means the treatise On the sublime of ps.-Longinus played a crucial role. However, the project will also place the theatre performances in a broader social and political perspective. These public events and the theatre performances suggest that…

What is the effect of practicing with electronic books on reading skills for grade 1 students?

Treatment with special stem cells seems to be a good option for suppressing the immune system in organ transplants. Researchers are trying to learn from processes that take place in the human body during pregnancy.

ARC (art_research_convergence) is an outreach initiative of Leiden University Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, and the University of the Arts The Hague, for the active communication of artistic research.

In tracing intra-site, local and regional craft networks in Late Bronze Age Tiryns (Greece) the project aimed to understand technological changes, (dis)continuities and social practices from the Late Palatial until the Post Palatial periods in Mycenaean Greece.

Science

The Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, in consultation with the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), provides funding for the Netherlands National Law Sector Plan, part of the domain ‘Social Sciences and Humanities’.

The principle aim of the project is to study the genesis and the quantitative properties of the Early Roman urban network of the Balkan and the Danube provinces.

With each discovery that is made, the universe reveals a fraction of its secrets: the most distant galaxies and quasars, the atmosphere of exoplanets, evidence of dark matter, complex molecules in space. This is what fills the days and nights of the researchers from the Leiden Observatory and their…

Simulations of galaxies help researchers understand astronomical observations better. The EAGLE simulation, a large project in which Leiden astronomers play a leading role, shows the evolution of the Universe, from just after the Big Bang to the present day.