Promotor: Prof.dr. D. Bouwmeester, Co-Promotor: M.J.A. de Dood

LACDR, the Leiden Institute for Drug Research, developed better tolerated excipients to prevent adverse effects related to the surface of nanosized drugs such as vaccines. LADCR professor of Biopharmacy Matthias Barz and Polypeptide Therapeutic Solutions (PTS) are collaborating to develop processes…

By reforming agriculture in targeted areas, we can protect the Natura 2000 areas much more effectively. This is what Jan Willem Erisman of Leiden University and Ton Brouwer of Gispoint consultancy write in a new report. They have created a special, nitrogen map of the Netherlands that shows the areas…

Yeast, alpacas, and antibodies. They may seem unrelated, but within the project of the Leiden iGEM students, they come together perfectly. For the international synthetic biology competition iGEM, the team is working on an innovative method to produce nanobodies—a special form of antibodies—using brewer’s…

Since the beginning of September, it is a fact: our faculty has a new strategic plan. The plan outlines what we will collectively commit to in the coming years. Is that important? For sure, say our directors Suzanne van der Pluijm (Operations) and Bart de Smit (Education). ‘The purpose of a strategic…

The Life in Custody (LIC) Study comprises a large-scale research project into prison climate and the quality of prison life in Dutch prisons.

On 29 October, seven innovative lecturers from different faculties will join the existing ten fellows of the Leiden Teachers' Academy. The current fellows have been engaged for the past year in implementing their innovation projects. How are these progressing?

Research into our history of colonialism and slavery, heart-to-heart conversations at a Keti Koti table, exhibitions, lectures and podcasts that establish the link between present and past. Staff and students participated in the national Slavery Memorial Year in many different ways. What have we learned…

The Hazelhoff Centre for Financial Law organized the third edition of the workshop ‘Principles for effective negotiations in legal practice’ on 5 June 2018.

In this blog post Saskia Postema and Jan Melissen claim that Chinese UN celebrities’ activism under Xi Jinping has become aligned with the Chinese leadership’s ambitions.

How does ICT affect society? Mirjam van Reisen, professor Computing for Society at the Leiden Centre of Data Science, is intrigued by this question. We speak with her about innovation, changes in health care, and mobile human trafficking. ‘Innovation has many benefits, but it can also be very disrup…

‘Discipline and Place’ is a lecture series offered by LeidenGlobal to PhD and Research MA students in the Fall of 2020. It gives students an opportunity to reflect on the broader field of the Social Sciences and the Humanities – including Archaeology and Law – and to position their own research accordingly.…

Leiden University has taken 18th place in the SustainaBul, the sustainability ranking of universities and universities of applied sciences in the Netherlands. A total of 32 institutions took part in this the tenth edition of SustainaBul. Although Leiden University is two places higher than last year,…

Leiden University has taken eighth place in the UI Green Metric, a global sustainability ranking for universities. Over 900 universities from all round the world participated in the ranking.

Researchers from the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) identified six top priorities where environmental interventions can make the most difference. By doing so, they hope to help researchers and policymakers make the most out of the limited, available resources to protect people and the pla…

Few details, relatively few words. The coalition agreement presented is one of the shortest in the past 20 years, Arco Timmermans knows. Consequently, the outlines were not negotiated for very long, which has its advantages and disadvantages. 'Over the next few weeks, we are mainly going to see the…

With his master's thesis 'The patriot behind the pot' Wytze Stellingwerf reached second place, among 38 contestants, in the IISG Thesis Award 2017.

Radio interview with CML researchers Martina Vijver and Henrik Barmentlo in the NTR radio programme: Nieuws en Co on Friday 24 March 2017. The researchers gave an overview of the research which will be conducted in the Living Lab in the coming year. The Living Lab is located in the BioScience Park in…

The image of the European Union (EU) as a remote law-making machine is widespread. Quite often journalists and politicians deliberately depict ‘Brussels’ as bureaucratic, even undemocratic, bypassing its citizens. And many of us buy into that image. Nikoleta Yordanova, Anastasia Ershova and Aleksandra…

In SustainaBul, 16 higher education institutions are ranked on sustainability each year. Leiden University has managed to keep its fifth place. A good position, but with room for improvement.

This thesis described the development of novel scanning tunneling microscopy techniques to investigate strongly correlated electronic states in quantum matter.

American PhD candidate Linda Gottschalk wrote this proposition in her dissertation on Caspar Coolhaes, Leiden’s first Professor of Religious Studies. What's behind it?

In this thesis, I focused on studying the above- and belowground interactions of J. vulgaris from a plant-soil feedback (hereafter, PSF) perspective. I investigated the temporal variation of negative PSF and examined the effects of root-associated bacteria on plant performance and aboveground herbiv…

We all do it sometimes: watch your favourite Netflix series, YouTuber or comfort series while you are eating. But we don't always consider the possible consequences this could have. Floor van Meer talks about this and more during an interview with BBC.

The right student in the right place. That is what LIACS programme director Frank Takes and education coordinator Joyce Glerum are aiming to do with the ‘Wisselstroom’ project. By next year, they hope to have a standardised protocol that will make it easier for computer science students to transfer…

According to GreenMetric, in 2020, Leiden University will be in 8th place in the global sustainability ranking UI GreenMetric. In this memo, participation in this ranking is evaluated, points for improvement are given and an ambition suggestion is made for 2021.

Sandrine Gallois, a post-doctoral research in the HARVEST project, was awarded second place in the prestigious L'Óreal UNESCO For Women In Science Rising Talent prize. Sandrine, along with her supervisor Amanda Henry and collaborator Tinde van Andel attended the awards ceremony at the Koninklijke Hollandsche…

Paul Behrens and his team have won the Frontiers Planet Prize of half a million euros for their research into the effects of switching to a plant-based diet.

On Wednesday the 31st of October, a Dragon’s Den style pitching competition took place at PLNT in Leiden. Seven teams pitched their business ideas to a panel of potential investors, consisting of experts in the field of entrepreneurial finance (such as a representative from Symbid, one of the first…

Leiden University is in third place in the Netherlands for the percentage of women professors, behind the Open University and Radboud University in Nijmegen. This is reported in the Review of Women Professors 2018.

LIACS graduate Lieven van Velthoven won yet another award for his Media Technology MSc graduation thesis entitled

New research published in the Journal of Leukocyte Biology suggests that these changes to the behavior of the immune system are persistent and can continue even after diet is improvedAlmost everyone knows that improving your eating habits will most likely improve your health. What most people may not…

Economic Anthropologist Erik Bähre talks on the Dutch News Radio Channel BNR about the effects of the Russia-Ukraine grain agreement for African countries.

How do digital technologies affect adolescent mental health and resilience? How do we foster a secure online environment? How should we deal with increasing rates of online crimes among adolescents? During the mini-symposium ‘The effect of the online world on adolescents’, presented by the interdisciplinary…

The challenge of achieving fast quantification in metabolomics is the presence of severe matrix effects during the MS analysis of complex samples.

This thesis presents the results of a study on the interfaces of insulating oxides with and without the insertion of a magnetic layer.

Archaeology is also digging with computers. This digital quest to find out how we humans lived in the past is what Karsten Lambers likes doing most. He is the first Professor of Digital and Computational Archaeology in the country. ‘A dream come true.’

The International Institute of Air and Space Law (IIASL) has always been proud of its network, and most notably its alumni. These unprecedented Corona times mean that the students have not had the same opportunities as in past years to meet and engage in personal relationships with that alumni-base,…

Psychologists Fenna Poletiek and Erik de Kwaadsteniet have received a grant from the FNV trade union to research people’s attitude to work if they receive a basic income. How do they plan to find answers?

The new Dutch government must act quickly to take rapid, far-reaching measures in three specific regions to tackle nitrogen emissions. This will create the space for a long-term strategy to deal with other urgent problems and the knot of obligations that the state will need to untangle. These are the…

Promotor: Prof.dr. M. Danhof

By growing in a soil plants change the biotic and abiotic properties of the soil in which they grow.

The research aims to explore the evolutionary adaptability of enzymes and the impact of temperature on protein evolution pathways, using M. tuberculosis β-lactamase BlaC as the object of study. Enzymes inherently embody a delicate balance between activity and stability, and the acquisition of new enzymatic…

Leiden pharmacy and pharmacology has risen to 17th place in the QS World University Rankings by Subject. In 2016 it was in 21st place in this annual ranking of leading universities in 46 disciplines.

The faculty of Humanities scores well in the anual QS World Universities Ranking By Subject list. This year we have placed sixth in the category Classics and Ancient History.

Computer Science on place 51 in QS World Universities Ranking 2011

In this thesis we study the landscape of gravitational models which modify GR by introducing an additional scalar degree of freedom (d.o.f.) to source Cosmic Acceleration.

Spectroscopic studies on fluorescent single molecules in organic condensed matter does not only provide information about the molecule itself, but also its near environment. By suppression of phonon-induced broadening of spectral lines through cooling to low temperatures, small changes in the spectral…

Indonesian Law and Reality in the Mahakam Delta

Come to the Night of Discoveries art and science festival on 16 September. Various researchers from the university are speaking at the festival.