Mining for natural resources harms the environment. But we desperately need them, for both the development of countries and the transition to a sustainable energy system. Professor of Sustainable Resource Use Ester van der Voet researches how we can reduce the environmental impact of natural resources…

The RISIS project aims at creating a distributed research infrastructure to support and advance science and innovation studies. This will give the field a strong scientific push forward, and at the same time, provide a radically improved evidence base for research and innovation policies, for research…

Are traces of fire use detectable in ancient hominin genomes?

This is the 2017 paperback release of William Michael Schmidli's The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere, which won the 2013 Foreign Affairs Magazine Best Book of the Year.

How do forensic scientists deal with complex DNA-evidence found at crime scenes? Giulia Cereda developed new statistical models to analyse them. PhD defense 12 January.

For the next six months the Van Vollenhoven Institute of Leiden University, together with The Asia Foundation (TAF), will develop a tool for evidence-based land policy in Timor-Leste.

The availability of natural resources, the energy transition, the importance of circularity and our dependence on China. This and more is what Professor of Industrial Ecology René Kleijn's inaugural lecture is about.

The chief aim of this study is to explore how classical Persian poetry and the Persian mysticism that is interwoven with the poetry have been used in the new politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, especially during the Iran-Iraq war.

Müller, Braun & Fraussen examine the conditions under which commissioners appear in the news and which communication strategies they pursue.

In this book, Sarah Giest, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Public Administration, provides insight into the collaborative and absorptive capacities needed to provide public support to local innovation through cluster organizations.

Arco Timmermans, professor by special appointment in Public Affairs at the Institute of Public Administration, is co-editor of this book focused on comparing engagements in policy advisory systems.

Governance is a complex puzzle of organisations, people and divergent interests. Academic research in this field furthers our knowledge of the role of public administrators, of different organisational structures, of the people who work at such organisations and of how these organisations implement…

With this thesis the PhD-candidate aims to enrich the body of evidence concerning the relation between stress and health, and the mediating role of (un)conscious perseverative cognitions, which is captured in the extended perseverative cognition hypothesis.

Sophie Vériter explores a small state’s impact on EU security governance, a hard challenge means against big states in this policy area.

Advanced biotechnology allows us to select or alter the genetic makeup of human embryos. What limits do we impose on biotechnological intervention in nature and the human body? And whose call is that?

Nature News reported on the use of bow-and-arrow for hunting based on the research made on small points found in a 54,000-year-old cave site in southern France.

Turbulent times in Italy: Deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini wants new elections so that he can become prime minister himself. He is campaigning on social media, including photos of himself posing in his swimming trunks.

Is scientific research useful? In his dissertation, Jorrit Smit argues that in order to answer this question one should not look at, for example, prominent scholars or influential organisations, but at places where knowledge exchange and co-creation take place. Promotion 6 May.

Currently, more than 80% of drugs are used in an off-label manner in critically ill neonates.

Has the industrial sector in China effectively been decarbonizing in recent years, across different regions and subsectors, and is it plausible that it will reduce its CO2 emissions in conformity with national and internationally pledged emission goals?

Assessment of teaching is currently becoming more and more common practice. As such assessment is generally based on complex, qualitative data from multiple sources (e.g., lesson plans, video-taped lessons, written reflections of the teacher on his or her performance), the overall quality of the assessment…

The use of virtual girl Sweetie, used by the police to investigate pedofiles, is problematic in the Netherlands. Researchers of Leiden University and Tilburg University conclude that this is due to the criminal law applicable at the moment.

New technological applications which the government wants to use need to be thoroughly examined to prevent them causing problems for citizens. Currently, things often go wrong – the childcare benefit affair being an extreme example – says Anne Meuwese, Professor of Public Law and Governance of AI, in…

In 2012, Swedish power company Vattenfall went to an investor-state tribunal in response to the decision of Germany to close three Vattenfall nuclear power plants on its territory. The tribunal now has to decide whether Germany’s decision is in accordance with the international Energy Charter Treaty.…

Arts and culture

Hak, lawyer, international imagery law lecturer, and adjunct associate professor, talks about his PhD research on the use of images in international criminal prosecutions. He was a public prosecutor in Canada for over 30 years and dealt primarily with the prosecution of homicides and other major cri…

In higher education, Open Educational Resources (OER) are available for anyone to use, but they are not widely used. Marjon Baas, PhD student at ICLON, investigated how instructors deal with OER. Defence on 5 October.

This dissertation looks into the role of discretion granted by EU directives (Article 288 Treaty on Functioning of the European Union) in legislative decision-making and national transposition processes of these directives.

Arnold van der Valk on Food Council MRA.

On 1 July 2020, Niek Strohmaier defended his thesis 'Making Sense of Business Failure'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. J.A.A. Adriaanse en dr. H. Pluut.

In this article, Eamon Aloyo argues that university supervisors should not use student evaluations of teachers as a measure of teaching effectiveness.

How can teachers be motivated by their students’ data in making stepwise changes to their teaching practices?

In this paper, the authors outline how the UK and USA adopt the Chilean pension model without proper attribution, potentially distorting the lessons.

The routine assumption that Upper Palaeolithic early modern humans in Europe were regular fire users who produced fire at will has never been tested against the archaeological record. Utilizing literature, database and microwear analytical approaches, this project seeks to establish the role and forms…

Governments have increasing amounts of data at their disposal. How can big data be used in policymaking? And are governments ready to deal with all this data? That is what Sarah Giest, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Public Administration, is interested in.

Human Rights at Risk brings together social scientists, legal scholars, and humanities scholars to analyze the policy challenges of human rights protection in the twenty-first century.

Simona Demková, Assistant professor at the Europa Institute of Leiden University, publishes her book ‘Automated Decision-Making and Effective Remedies: The New Dynamics in the Protection of EU Fundamental Rights in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice’.

This subproject offers a political and transnational perspective on the development and uses of public memories of the Revolt in the seventeenth century.

This unique collection applies globalization concepts to the discipline of archaeology, using a wide range of global case studies from a group of international specialists.

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), one of the largest families of membrane proteins, are responsive to a diverse set of physiological endogenous ligands including hormones and neurotransmitters.

The main aim of this research is to understand the dynamics of identity within indigenous Caribbean communities as expressed through the practice of intentional cranial modification. A multidisciplinary approach will be applied to achieve this aim, combining current anthropological and sociological…

On the 1st of November, Andrew Wigman successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Andrew on this achievement!

Alumnus Allard Altena (27) is mentor of the month. He worked at the Public Prosecution Service and is now a regulator at the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM). He wants to share his broad experience with students and young alumni – you too perhaps?

Nikki Ikani, Assistant Professor Intelligence and Security at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA), has recently published her latest monograph 'Crisis and change in European Union foreign policy' with Manchester University Press.