How many species of plants, animals, fungi and moss live in the gardens surrounding the Oude UB at Rapenburg 70? On Tuesday May 20th, the Citizen Science Lab led an investigation in the front gardens and back courtyard of the Old UB at Rapenburg 70, together with 15 colleagues working in that buildi…

This book argues that the combined literary, epigraphic and archaeological evidence supports the theory that early-imperial Italy had about six million inhabitants.

What is the impact of Indonesia’s democratization process on everyday state-citizen relations?

Democratic citizenship refers to the capacity and willingness of citizens to actively influence the functioning of state institutions. While considered a vital correlate of democratization and the rule of law, its largely western-oriented literature rarely studies the forms of democratic citizenship…

Children are perfect scientists: they are bursting with curiosity, they want to know how the world works and they go exploring every day. Yet many children barely get a chance to be engaged in science. A number of scientists from the Young Academy want to change that. They have received 150,000 euros…

You may know it by the umbrella term 'citizen science'. You may also use terms such as volunteer mapping, patient co-researcher, or even community engaged learning to describe participatory practices in your research or teaching. No matter what you call it, there’s plenty going on when it comes to this…

Many of us love music, but we don’t understand why exactly that is – or how our individual experiences of music can differ. Rebecca Schaefer will research this in the run-up to the SNAAR Festival in Utrecht. And in a unique way: students in vocational education (mbo) will be the researchers.

Cristina Grasseni’s project

The Heritage Quest project is a citizen science project in which volunteers participate in archaeological research.

With the emergence of new methods and technologies such as improved DNA analysis and big data, archaeological research has changed radically in recent decades. The researchers from the Department of Archaeological Sciences at the Faculty of Archaeology use new scientific knowledge to answer fundamental…

Inaugural lecture

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…

In this article, Martin Sievert and Jonas Bruder investigated whether and how administrative burdens influences citizens' perceptions of welfare policies and attitudes towards beneficiaries.

The idea of citizens and public professionals collaborating to provide public services has widely spread in several countries around the globe. Co-production is often presented as the go-to solution for challenges like a legitimacy crisis of both the government and the market, and financial concerns.…

Edward Elgar

Leiden University offers support in the different stages of your research lifecycle.

Around 1,300 Leideners found 2,265 species during the Expeditie Stadsnutuur urban biodiversity inventory. ‘It’s been a huge success’, says scientific coordinator Frederic Lens.

In recent years, the question why citizens (do not) support democratic innovations has attracted increasing academic attention. In this research note, Van Der Does & Kantorowicz for the first time empirically verify what drives citizens’ instrumental considerations in their evaluation of a DI.

This article aims to contribute to the debate about citizen involvement in medical and social issues by studying co-production initiatives in The Hague.

This article studies the influence of framing on preferences for cooperation with the EU.

How does open government affect the level of public trust?

The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has rewarded four projects in which Leiden researchers are bringing science and society closer together. What are these projects?

People are keen to make a contribution that will be valuable for scientific research. Many thousands are taking part in the Major Flu Survey. Leiden researcher Anne Land is publishing on this subject in the Journal of Science Communication.

This article investigates the causes and examines how differing public perceptions of the rule of law contribute to this trend.

How can the Indonesian National Ombudsman make the transition from autonomous to responsive justice in view of the day-to-day challenges it is faced with?

OSCL is a learning community where anyone associated with Leiden University can learn and talk about open science practices. Example events are Open Science cafés, workshops, and walk-in-hours. The what Open science is an umbrella term for an approach to science that aims to make scientific…

The majority of scientists, from archaeologists through to zoologists, collect enormous volumes of data. Their massive databases contain large amounts of information which is difficult for humans to filter. With a solid grounding in statistics and computer science, we can develop algorithms for analyzing…

In this article, Bart Schuurman and Sarah Louise Carthy explore the distinctions between radicalised individuals and the general population

One of the goals of the Citizen Science lab is to be an incubator for citizen science projects. Over the years, the lab has been involved in creating and supporting various projects. Get inspired!

How sustainable are open data infrastructures? Will the data we need in the future be available and usable? This project takes COVID-19 data/infrastructures as a case to study the sustainability and dynamics of open data infrastructures.

PathOS aims to contribute to a better understanding and measurement of Open Science impacts and their causal mechanisms. This is pivotal in order to develop effective OS policy in the EU (European Union). It will do so by collecting concrete evidence of OS effects, by studying the pathways of OS practices,…

On the 9th of November 2022, 149 groups of last year's primary school children from 31 schools around the Netherlands had the opportunity to become social scientists for a day, researching their own social environment in a Citizen Science project called ‘Wij vinden!” (We find!)

This year will see the start of not one but two citizen science projects in Leiden and The Hague. This is the outcome of a large survey among residents and researchers in both university cities. The Citizen Science Lab will help the winners implement their ideas, with support from the University and…

What is the effect of light at night on plant phenology and physiology, and how does this affect plant interactions with other species?

Sarah Giest, Assistant Professor at Leiden Univeristy, researched the topic of regulatory and market structures that affect nudge implementation by private actors, captured by the ‘budge’ idea.

Do you have any questions about the Citizen Science Lab? Are you looking to participate in a local citizen science project? Do you want to establish a project for yourself and could use some support?

Politics is about the authorised allocation of values: who gets what, when and how much? This question is relevant at many different levels, in many different places and in very different ways.

Although smartphones and other consumer cameras are increasingly used for scientific applications like citizen science, it’s still difficult to compare and combine data from different devices. PhD student Olivier Burggraaff developed a new easy-to-use standardised method which makes it possible for…

Researchers, civil servants and local residents met on 27 September to talk about partnering for sustainability. What were the results? In a green ‘city oasis’ in the centre of The Hague they spoke about the energy transition, bottom-up initiatives and citizen science.

The manner and context in which the government supports citizens' initiatives are often more important than the legal framework. In practice, it only creates unnecessary division and there are no solid grounds for it. Esmée Driessen, PhD candidate at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative…

Psychology Lab on Wheels makes science accessible for everyone. On Monday 24 June, we will be back with our mobile lab at the Old Observatory near the Singelpark in Leiden. Join our research to learn to better recognise emotions with a Serious game and read more about participant Maxime and game developer…

In 2019 citizen scientists inspected elevation maps of the Veluwe region and discovered several thousand potential new archaeological structures. The project started as exploration into the potential of citizen science in Dutch archaeology, but developed into a fully flexed project in which citizen…

Heritage Quest is a citizen science project in which volunteers help archaeologists in the quest for undiscovered archaeological heritage.

On Friday 4th February 2022 we welcomed in hybrid format (in person and online live streaming) 154 registered participants, of which 97 online, to present the first results of the Food Citizens? ERC Consolidator project.