How is vegetative development regulated in plants and how does this affect a plant’s life history strategy?

While colloidal aggregates are often undesirable due to their random shapes, we exploit them as a starting point to synthesize patchy particles.

The research group Science Communication and Society has been physically within the Institute of Biology (IBL) since 2012 and has become a formal part of the institute in 2018. The mission of this group is understanding how science communication works to improve the interaction between science and s…

The central question of this Vici proposal is to investigate if, and how actinobacteria exploit life without a cell wall.

We investigate water quality and want to understand the effects of human interference on aquatic biodiversity.

On Tuesday 2 April Vice President of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, came to Leiden to receive the Plastic Avengers Manifest from Plastic Soup Surfer Merijn Tinga. The Manifest contains five key areas for a new approach to deal with how we use plastic.

LAPP was invited by the Plastic Soup Surfer to attend the premiere screening of SOURCE 2 SEA, a documentary following the Plastic Soup Surfer on his journey along the Rhine.

Esther Kentin wrote a blog for the Leiden Law Blog about the EU Plastics Strategy: ‘Recycling as panacea for plastic pollution: the EU Plastics Strategy.’

Emily den Boer of LAPP visited the Canal Cups Expo, displaying the plastic cups cleaned up by students after Leidens Ontzet.

An overview of the media appearances of scientists working with the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs about terrorist attacks in Europe, their consequences, and more.

We, as LUGO, believe that with simple everyday actions we can prevent large amounts of single-use plastic water bottles from entering our oceans.

As a prelude to the Night of Discoveries, an Afternoon of Discoveries will be held in Leiden on 21 September for children from the age of eight. Researchers will tell exciting tales and the children will get to do experiments.

In Leiden University's Vision on Sustainability 2030, biodiversity (biological diversity) is an important focus in its teaching and research and on its campuses.

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On Wednesday 16th of May, 2018, two student researchers of the LAPP, Hanna Leisti and Heidi Kaarto, had an opportunity to take part in the High Level Debate ‘Can the Blue Economy Save Our Ocean?’. The event was organised by the Sky and WWF in the premises of the European Parliament in Brussels with…

Leiden's iGEM team has won high honours at the Grand Jamboree in Paris. The biology students came second in the Overgraduate category with their project PHAse Out. They also took home awards for Best Biomanufacturing Project, Best Wiki and Best Entrepreneurship as well as a Gold Medal. To top it all…

The new academic year has started and with it education as well. Associate professor Dennis Claessen and Director of Education Han de Winde from the Institute of Biology Leiden devised an environmentally friendly introduction to the Leiden Bio Science Park for their students, with the help of Plastic…

A Leiden Groningen student team has reached the European finals of the BISC-E competition. In this annual competition students have to come up with a sustainable solution to a major social problem. The team invented Suckerspheres: a natural alternative to the plastic microbeads that are still widely…

Microplastics are everywhere: in the ocean, in cooking salt and even in animals. Should that worry us? 'Yes,' said environmental scientist Thijs Bosker during a pop-up lecture in The Hague on 8 September. ‘We really need to do something now, not wait until it becomes an even bigger problem.’

What is the history of plastic packaging in human society?

How can you do your bit for sustainability? Students from Leiden University have launched an interactive website with 150 sustainable initiatives in and around The Hague. The website Sustainable The Hague makes it easy to find a sustainable shop, restaurant or community initiative in your local area…

Merijn Tinga hit the headlines in 2016 as the Plastic Soup Surfer. In force six winds, the Leiden biologist ventured across the English Channel on a hydrofoil kiteboard made from plastic bottles. Interview with this Leiden artist who is fighting the mountain of plastic waste and finding his feet as…

How do you count the nanoplastics in your body? Leiden researchers published a method in Nature Protocols today that should make this easier. Important for both environmental and medicine research.

Last week Esther Kentin participated in the Second Meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-Ended Expert Group on Marine Litter and Microplastics organized by UN Environment in Geneva.

Last week Esther Kentin participated in the Second Meeting of the Ad Hoc Open-Ended Expert Group on Marine Litter and Microplastics organized by UN Environment in Geneva.

One of the most crucial aspects of our behaviour is our motivation to explore novel environments and interact with new people. This became painfully clear during the COVID-19 lockdowns, when many people suffered from lack of new experiences and real-life social interactions. The relevance of novelty…

Do e-waste workers display enhanced effects of adverse health effects due to informal e-waste processing in Nigeria? Is there a difference between the health outcomes of the exposed and the control groups? Are there difference in health effects within and between job groups (collectors, dismantlers,…

What is my contribution to the world? This is what students and researchers at Leiden University College The Hague (LUC) ask themselves every day. They want to make a difference with their teaching and research in the four global challenges of ‘Peace and Justice,’ ‘Sustainability,’ ‘Diversity’ and ‘…

What is the role of auxin in the initiation and process of somatic embryogenesis?

What are key regulators of plant ageing that can reverse ageing in plants (rejuvenation), and how can we use this knowledge to improve crop plants?

How do we approach education that facilitates creative confidence for students that leads to innovative solutions to society’s present day and future sustainability challenges? This education research project tackles a sustainability dilemma faced by households in everyday life viz.

Leiden University offers its students a wide range of bachelor's, master's and minors that explore sustainability or climate. Here, you find an overview of those programmes in the academic year 2020-2021.

In the specialisation Applied Cognitive Psychology, part of the Master in Psychology, you develop all the practical and academic skills necessary to apply psychological knowledge to real-life problems in working environments and organisations.

Leiden University is committed to reducing our water consumption.

Life returned to something resembling normal after Covid but other crises soon took its place. These great challenges are also being felt at the University and our researchers are working on solutions. The nitrogen crisis, problems with young people’s services and an increasingly urgent climate crisis:…

An Interdisciplinary project group of the Master Industrial Ecology was awarded a prize for its project “From waste to resource, One chain with shared responsibility”, commissioned by AEB Amsterdam and Waag Society.

Time and again synthesised substances have been shown to pollute the environment more than lab tests predicted. In her inaugural lecture on 16 November, professor of Ecotoxicology Martina Vijver gives a warning for the risks of new, man-made chemical substances and nanomaterials. Various media payed…

Op de dag van de duurzaamheid van 10 oktober startte de 'Billiecup' pre-pilot op de Faculteit der Rechtsgeleerdheid. Aanwezig waren 'plastic soup surfer' Merijn Tinga, Bart Hemmes van het Leiden University Green Office (LUGO) en Esther Kentin, docent bij instituut Metajuridica & projectleider Leiden…

Having lectures on sustainability when you're a first-year student of Law, or a course on climate change when you're studying Public Administration may sound odd, but that is just what Associate Professor in Environmental Sciences Thijs Bosker wants to see happening. Together with his colleague Paul…

Flying is cheaper than driving a car, but a disaster for the environment. Yet few politicians dare to levy excise duty on kerosene. This is only one example from a world where emotions and yelling are burying facts, and in which scientists lose connection with society.

Professor of Fungal Genetics and Biotechnology Arthur Ram explains how fungi can help us be more sustainable.

Cryogenic memories, antibiotic treatment for urinary tract infections and recycling plastic sustainably. These are the subjects of the three NWO-XS grants awarded to Leiden Science researchers.

The eight ambitions of Leiden University's vision on education - Learning@LeidenUniversity - were the key theme of the packed Education Festival on 19 June. More than 200 lecturers and students came to PLNT, Leiden's innovation hotspot, for inspiration and best practices in the field of educational…

At Orientation Week Leiden, a record 1,378 new international students got to know the city and one another. From a cracking karaoke party to fishing plastic out of the canals – see what they got up to in the photos!

Materials like concrete, steel, plastic and fertiliser shape the world around us, but they’re also extremely polluting. If we want to build a more sustainable society, we can learn a lot from archeologists. How do we relate to these materials? And are there alternatives? Maikel Kuijpers is writing a…

Ava Bauer’s successor has been announced. From September 2023, Nalani Verwoord will be the new assessor of Leiden Science. Nalani is a third-year Biology student.

From 26 to 29 September 2017 the International Conference on Microplastic Pollution in the Mediterranean Sea was held.

Prof. Robbert Dijkgraaf used experiments and models from Leiden University for his tv lecture on symmetry. The lecture was broadcast live on channel 1. He showed that our DNA only twists in one direction using a plastic DNA model and he used a Chladni plate to show the symmetry of sound.

You can't see them with the naked eye, but they are highly likely to pose a threat to our health: microplastics. These tiny plastic particles are present everywhere in the environment, including within our bodies. On science platform The Conversation molecular biologist Meiru Wang offers valuable insights…