Mathilde Mechling defended her thesis on 28 january 2020.

What makes a pension scheme sustainable? Most answers to this question have revolved around expert assessments of pension schemes’ affordability or adequacy. This study shifts focus from the financial or social sustainability of pension scheme designs to their political sustainability. The key question…

Institute of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, Leiden University

Can the pink-pigmented microbe Methylobacterium extorquens be genetically engineered to convert the sustainable raw material methanol into antibiotics?

Do you want to be an intermediary between the scientific experts, policy makers and politicians in the domain of sustainability? Are you keen on contributing to the development of governance solutions needed to work towards a sustainable society and contribute to the implementation of these solutions?…

Do you want to be an intermediary between the scientific experts, policy makers and politicians in the domain of sustainability? Are you keen on contributing to the development of governance solutions needed to work towards a sustainable society and contribute to the implementation of these solutions?…

The Sustainability Research Cluster fosters dialogue and collaboration among anthropologists and sociologists researching aspects of socio-cultural, ecological, and economic sustainability in and affiliated with the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology. It also seeks to stimulate…

How do you involve a local community to tackle biodiversity loss? How do you create awareness and political movement on climate change? And how do you find a balance between environmental impacts and economic needs when it comes to pollution? These are examples of core questions at the heart of the…

How do you involve a local community to tackle biodiversity loss? How do you create awareness and political movement on climate change? And how do you find a balance between environmental impacts and economic needs when it comes to pollution? These are examples of core questions at the heart of the…

The main research theme in the group of Dennis Hetterscheid is to understand and mimic bioinorganic multi-electron processes that are relevant to our future energy infrastructure. Reduction of protons generates hydrogen that can be used as a chemical fuel. Alternatively to gaseous hydrogen, the reduction…

The Faculty of Law is becoming more sustainable in many ways, both in teaching and research.

Latest since Rutger Bregman’s “Utopia for Realists”, Universal Basic Income (UBI) has caught public attention again as a possible solution for many societal issues. Watch the event back via the video below.

Our current lifestyle is not sustainable, and we know it. Our carbon-based economy causes climate change, and our livestock threatens the rainforests. We also know what we ought to do to save the planet: decarbonize the economy and change our diet. However, too many people lack the moral motivation…

The double issue of kritisk etnografi – Swedish Journal of Anthropology, has a question: Is Europe skilling for sustainable food? The two guest editors, Professor Maris Boyd Gillette from the University of Gothenburg and Professor Cristina Grasseni from Leiden University, have convened an esteemed…

The plans for making the University Library (UB) more sustainable will be carried out in three steps: first the glazing at the front of the building will be replaced with HR++ glass, then the skylights will be renewed and finally the air conditioning system will be updated. Once these steps have been…

Study information

Online information presentation

Study information

Study information

Online information presentation

By placing food at the centre of investigation, this Minor explores current-day debates on political, environmental, economic and cultural change at both the local and global levels.

In this course, you will learn about sustainability and staying with the environmental boundaries of our planet. You will gain an understanding of the effects of growing affluence and population growth, the key challenges we are facing, and ways to influence your direct environment.

The following report discusses a survey on the topic of the Sustainable Development Goals that was distributed among researchers at Leiden University in the month of November 2021.

On 21 January, the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) has released two reports on circular economy and urban mining in the Netherlands. In them, together with Statistics Netherlands, they take stock of part of the Dutch ‘urban mine’: how much raw material can we reuse from the electricity grid,…

The relationship between States and foreign corporations are regulated by international economic law and international investment law in particular. Any disputes between States and foreign corporations must therefore also be solved by reference to this body of public international law, for example when…

The first index to measure product safety, sustainability, and circularity, operationalising the EU’s (SSbD) framework.

A place where scientists and students from Leiden University and residents of The Hague come together to create innovative solutions for sustainable living in the city: that's what the Sustainable City Lab aims to be. When we talk about "sustainable living" we think of many different things. For example:…

There is an increasing amount of attention on EU and its Member States contributions to implementation of two landmark agreements: the Paris Climate Agreement and the UN Agenda 2030 with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Absent from the current literature is an analysis of the political effect of…

Indonesia is experiencing various environmental challenges related to its fast economic growth. Therefore, it is necessary to have measurable and applicable indicators to obtain accurate data and information regarding the costs of adverse environmental impacts arising from economic activities to support…

The current production of a number of critical metals is insufficient for the large-scale transition to electric vehicles. This is the conclusion of a report by environmental scientist Benjamin Sprecher and organisations Copper8 and Metabolic. As a solution, they advocate more electric car-sharing,…

In times of hardships or crisis, local people know how to deal with it using their resourcefulness. Although efforts are sometimes made by the government to help them, they are fully aware that community support is at least equally important.

How can we understand the encounter between communities active in sustainability initiatives and governmental agents at the multiple institutional layers in the Netherlands?

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.

The Sustainability Monitor 2023 shows that Leiden University is taking its sustainability efforts seriously.

Are you interested to learn more about frontier innovation thinking and practices? Do you want to explore the societal relevance of frugal innovation? Are you up for a multidisciplinary challenge? Do you want to combine theory and practice? If you are answering these questions affirmatively, you are…

Research practice, funding agencies and global science organizations suggest that research aimed at addressing sustainability challenges is most effective when ‘co-produced’ by academics and non-academics. Co-production promises to address the complex nature of contemporary sustainability challenges…

A plant that takes metal from the ground all by itself: a natural way to mine or to clean the soil. PhD student Roderick Bouman (Hortus Botanicus Leiden) described a new plant species from Sabah, Borneo, which can be used to extract nickel. In an open access article in Botanical studies, he and the…

Environmental Humanities in the New Himalayas: Symbiotic Indigeneity, Commoning, Sustainability showcases how the eco-geological creativity of the earth is integrally woven into the landforms, cultures, and cosmovisions of modern Himalayan communities.

Researchers from the THEOR CHEM group at Leiden University strive to set new benchmarks in the accuracy of the prediction of interaction energies between molecules and metal surfaces.

The article 'Co-productive agility and four collaborative pathways to sustainability transformations' is published in Global Environmental Change and accessible via OpenAccess. Professor Anthropology of Sustainability and Livelihood Marja Spierenburg of the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development…

This project investigates ancient water management of streams, springs and runoffs on the archaeological site of Monte Albán, Mexico, as a means to contribute with different stakeholders in the development of sustainable solutions to water problems today such as floods and scarcity.

Assessing the risks of engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) solely on the basis of experimental assays is time-consuming, resource intensive, and constrained by ethical considerations (such as the principles of the 3Rs of animal testing). The adoption of computational toxicology in this field is a high p…

Science, Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS)

On May 9th 2023, LUGO hosted its big Sustainability Day Event, on the theme: the planetary boundaries! The event, which took place at the Academy Building in Leiden, included an opening talk by Prof.dr.ing. Jan Willem Erisman, among others. At the closing, LUGO also awarded its first place prize for…

What is the optimal design of sandy solutions for sustainable climate change adaption, from an ecological, biophysical and societal point of view?

Tax scandals, like the Panama Papers, the Paradise Papers, and the Pandora Papers, have made taxation a major topic of public debate. Learn more about this in the new minor Tax and Society: Building a Sustainable and Fair Tax System.

Study information