Neanderthals in cold regions probably ate a lot more vegetable food than was previously thought. This is what archaeologist Robert Power has discovered based on new research on ancient Neanderthal dental plaque. PhD defence 1 November.

Will women’s increasing electoral participation in rural India improve governance? On what terms are women being incorporated into politics – through existing patriarchal and clientelist relationships, or through collective action against the patriarchal and clientelist system?

Promotor: P. J. J. Hooykaas Co-promotor: B. S de Pater

Introducing five papers about of the impact of crises on the governance, decision-making, and institutional design of the Euro Area, political scientists Valerie D'Erman (University of Victoria, Canada), Paul Schure (University of Victoria, Canada) and Amy Verdun (Leiden University) summarise the 'lessons…

Provides a cutting-edge comparative political economy analysis of welfare and inequality across ten East Asian countries.

Which plants are depicted, described or collected in these century-old objects? Who made these objects, where and for what purpose? What is their scientific and societal relevance today?

How do governments distribute resources across economic sectors during a crisis? And why do some sectors receive more than others? The recent COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the urgency of these questions. In this paper, we explore the extent to which a political economy…

The shift from response to recovery is now noticeable as the world moves past the paralyzing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This book explores responses to the pandemic by international, regional, and local institutions, multilateral action, and crisis prevention efforts at different levels of governance,…

On the 24th of June Hossein Pourbagheri successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

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.

The Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) is an internationally oriented institute for research and education in biology.

The Sundanese people, the largest ethnic group in West Java, have been using traditional medicine for a long time. Known as ubar kampung, Sundanese indigenous knowledge, beliefs and practices of traditional medicine are based on local people’s knowledge and use of Medicinal, Aromatic, and Cosmetic (MAC)…

On 12 April 2022 Alok Oak successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Which genes are involved in woodiness and associated traits such as drought tolerance, flowering time, stem elongation, life span, and plant herbivory, and how do these gene regulatory pathways overlap?

This project addresses the occurrence of political and ideological biased crimes in light of the recent migration influx in European countries.

In the light of the fragility of current liberal democracies, this dissertation aims to contribute to rethinking political order by reconstructing Hegel’s account in the Philosophy of Right.

The Centre for the Study of Political Parties and Representation (CSPPR) aims to serve as an interdisciplinary platform for scholars of Leiden University for research focusing on the historical and contemporary operation and functioning of political parties and political representation, with a particular…

Promotor: Erik F. Smets, Co-promotores: Barbara Gravendeel, Niels Raes

On Friday 10 July the Towards Biosolar Cells research programme was granted a budget of 25 million euros by the Dutch Government. The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality recommended the programme because it will contribute to green energy, improve food supplies and a create a more sustainable…

Does becoming a public sector employee change a person’s political beliefs, behaviors and interactions with the state? Do public teachers hold the same values as other professionals and the general Brazilian public?

Politics, Culture and National Identities investigates a wide range of national political cultures in Europe and the Americas in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Dividing Worlds: Tsunamis, Seawalls, and Ontological Politics in Northeast Japan

In the master’s programme Politics, Culture and National Identities, 1789 to the Present at Leiden University you will be at the forefront of a new approach to understand how national politics and identities in Europe are conceived.

The MA in Politics, Society and Economy of Asia takes a social science approach to the study of one or more countries or regions in modern or contemporary Asia.

PBDL favors multidisciplinary research. Depending on the problems under investigation, PBDL establishes collaborations between experts from for example molecular genetics, molecular and electro cell physiology, biochemistry, organic chemistry, analytical mathematics, mathematical statistics and computational…

When EU member states signed the Treaty of Lisbon in 2007, they did not anticipate the manifold crises in store for them over the following years. Instead of the intended consolidation of a Union which had just gone through its most profound modernisation and biggest round of enlargements, the EU has…

How has democracy’s decline affected law making processes, enabling powerful stakeholders’ influence while minimalizing the protection of public interest and the environment?

This article introduces the special issue on ‘Digital Activism’ by exploring some of the trends in social media activism and scholarship thereof. The authors ask to what extent this literature helps us understand Asian forms of online activism, which forms of activism have relatively done well, and…

‘What I find most alluring about soil life is that you can steer it,’ researcher Martijn Bezemer of the Institute Biology Leiden (IBL) reveals. ‘You can ask: What do you want? And then I can transform the soil into something you need. At least, that is what we thought.’

This dissertation is a study of North Korean art as a site where politics, history, and culture meet.

Leiden and Austrian researchers have succeeded in further uncovering how a plant cell passes on the growth hormone auxin in a directional manner to the next cell. Three proteins that cling together in a bunch appear to be essential for this important transport process. ‘This discovery solves a crucial…

Are you thinking about studying Politics, Culture and National Identities, 1789 to the Present? Learn more and watch the introduction video.

A wide range of plant species is essential to our earth because of the different materials and foods these plants provide. But plant diversity has decreased drastically in recent decades. PhD candidate Kaixuan Pan explains what we can do to increase it once again.

This book discusses theories of crisis management and the radical right, to shed light on how responses to crisis influence radical right parties in their presence, discourse, and evolution. The book offers a comparative perspective by examining case studies with various traditions of radical right…

For a few years now, Leiden’s Hortus botanicus has been mounting a campaign to cherish wild plants in the city – for the biodiversity and beauty of this spontaneous vegetation. Botanical artists reveal this beauty in an exhibition at Oude UB in Leiden.

Plants that are pollinated by fewer species of animal may be less vulnerable to change than was thought. This is what Saskia Klumpers discovered in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado. She will be awarded a PhD on 15 December.

The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation, a world-wide effort by the botanist and plant protection community, is making considerable progress in protecting plant diversity around the world, a new report says. The Hortus botanicus Leiden is one of the partners of the project.

That a switching protein plays a role in protecting a plant from too much sunlight was already known, but how exactly was not yet understood. The research group of Anjali Pandit has now discovered that this protein changes shape when there is too much sunlight. The results have been published in Nature…

- Which metabolites could be components of NADES? - How can we prove the presence of NADES in nature? - What are the roles of NADES in nature? - How to apply NADES in life sciences?

We live in a data-drenched society awash with numbers. An inhabitant of the democratic polis of Athens (5th and 4th centuries B.C.E.) increasingly found himself surrounded by numerical data. This project aims to analyze the communicative functions and the political meaning(s) ascribed to these public…

How do old and new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) relate to new social and political movements in Central Africa? What does this tell us about Africa and the Information Age?

Leiden scientists have discovered a new plant genus with two new species at a potential nickel mine site in Indonesia. Remarkable characteristic of the plants: they store manganese in their leaves.

How are top-down directives translated and implemented at mission level in UN peacekeeping?

The ‘Amorphophallus titanum’ at the Hortus botanicus Leiden is blooming. This Titan Arum, also known as the ‘giant penis plant’, last flowered in 2009.

What chemicals do plants have available, and what happens if they use them when faced with bacteria or fungi? That is what PhD candidate Luis Salomé Abarca is keen to learn. He studies plants’ survival and their use of chemical components in communication and defence. Salomé Abarca works at the Natural…

Soil that is too wet, or too dry. Or with a lot or few nutrients. Due to climate change, the differences are becoming bigger, and plants must increasingly be able to adapt to survive. How do you make plants more stress-resistant? For this purpose, researchers from Leiden, along with other universities,…