How can Ronald Mulder run his skates across an ice layer at 60 km/h? His skating blades get help from a lubricating layer of meltwater. In Leiden, physicists found this explanation to be incomplete. Theoretician Hans van Leeuwen and experimental physicist Tjerk Oosterkamp searched for a deeper answe…

Effectively treating a severe case of pneumonia is often challenging. Identifying the pathogen behind it can be difficult. PhD candidate Ilona den Hartog tried something new: ‘We searched for answers in substances our own body produces.’ PhD defence on 17 September.

The American president Trump is considering military intervention in Mexico to get rid of the drug cartels once and for all, but Mexico is not interested in other countries' interventions. According to Jelle van Buuren, Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, Trump's much…

This study is important because it seeks to uncover whether clinicians' communication influences neurobiological and physiological outcomes for patients.

As a student, Thijs Brocades Zaalberg was primarily interested in diplomacy surrounding conflicts. Through research on peace operations and subsequently the fight against guerrillas, he became increasingly involved with the most violent aspects of colonial warfare. Per 1 September 2024 he is appointed…

What if you could watch a single cell eat in real time? This could answer questions about diseases such as cancer. PhD candidate Yixuan Wang has developed a glowing chemical tool that makes this possible, revealing how living cells take in nutrients.

Piercing through the skull with an ice pick, administering electric shocks without an anaesthetic, or applying leeches to the uterus: these may seem like medieval methods of torture, but they are in fact therapies used in medicine. Willem van der Does writes about all of them in his new book. ‘Physicians…

Humanity is a widely used concept in organisations, yet it is rarely given concrete meaning. As a result, it often remains vague and non-committal, with dehumanisation as an unintended consequence. According to Marjon Bohré, practising humanity requires making deliberate choices, in language, decision-making…

The Covid-19 pandemic has challenged political leaders worldwide, bringing discussion about leadership in times of crisis. In various media outlets, a recurring topic has been the relationship between the gender of a country’s leader and the success of his or her Covid-19 approach. Especially female…

Political scientist Leila Demarest tells about her research to Nigeria’s National Assembly. How do politicians cooperate and how are public resources distributed among the different regions?

The Wall Street Journal reviews historian Eric Storm's new book 'Nationalism: A World History', which examines the complex history and development of nationalism and nation-states.

PhD defence

Conference

Lecture, Com(parative) Syn(tax) Series

Seminar

Lecture

Lecture

The Leiden Index of Depression Sensitivity (LEIDS) measures cognitive reactivity (CR) to sadness, an aspect of cognitive vulnerability to depression, conceptually similar to rumination.

Hegemony and World Order explores a key question for our tumultuous times of multiple global crises.

Are you curious of how the university and the faculty work? Read more about that on this page.

How do individuals make decisions? What determines the quality of group decisions? When and why do people cooperate with others? How does intergroup competition evolve?

Promotor: Prof.dr. T.H.W. Bäck

How do genetic and environmental factors make us vulnerable to depression?

This project consists of various case studies.

In his book The magic of healing, Willem van der Does talks about 14 pioneers in the history of psychiatry. These pioneers all had one thing in common: they started with a radical idea which led to great enthusiasm.

Why does the history of dogmatism deserve our attention? This open access book analyses uses of the term, following dogmatism from Victorian Britain to Cold War America, examining why it came to be regarded as a vice, and how understandings of its meaning have evolved.

What roles does music play within our society? How does current society influence music? And vice versa: how does music influence, for instance, politics, media and technology? The minor Music Studies offers you a different way of thinking about music. Music is more than just a form of art, more than…

Lecture

Reputation literature has provided crucial insights about the evolution of the US regulatory state. Daniel Carpenter’s influential account painstakingly demonstrates the relevance of reputation to bureaucratic ‘power’ and to early institutional state-building in the US context. We argue that adopting…

On Thursday 16 November 2017, Lalin Kovudhikulrungsri defended her doctoral thesis entitled ‘The Right to Travel by Air of Persons with Disabilities’. The supervisors are Professor P.M.J. Mendes de Leon and Professor A.C. Hendriks.

In a virtual game environment, one of the positive effects of anonymity is the absence of one's prejudice toward others, which can give a person the freedom to change and experiment (Bartle, 2003). This project will adopt anonymity to be added to online cross-cultural collaborative learning in higher…

The main goal of the research that is conducted in the Brain and Education Lab is to create a better understanding of the cognitive and neural systems that support learning and academic performance across development. To pursue this goal, lab members draw on theories and methods from developmental and…

Is system thinking through perspectives the solution for biology education to help students see the connections between different topics?

Fundamental research teaches us how our brain decides to eat one more sweet, instead of doing exercise. A public information campaign about healthy lifestyle has little impact on the decision, as Professor of General Psychology Bernard Hommel is aware. However, he does know what works. But the question…

Participation in the matching module is a compulsory part of the admission and application procedure for all applying students of this programme.

The state of our environment is a global concern. Despite an increasing awareness, setting internationally binding and ambitious commitments has proven to be a very difficult process. Can unilateral trade measures form an alternative and contribute to global environmental protection?

This project explores how Muslim authorities and writers use Russian to transmit Islamic contents, and whether this leads to a specific

The Netherlands Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Security and Justice have requested the Centre for Terrorism and Counterterrorism to complete a research project on cyber governance from a policy perspective. The results of this project will contribute to the deliverables of the fourth International…

This PhD project investigates the different ways in which honorific forms are used in Japanese other than to express politeness, and how different factors affect perceptions about these uses.

Study information

In this research note, Van der Does & Kantorowicz aruge that citizens that tend to experience political exclusion are often more supportive of direct and participatory forms of decision-making.

The Register of Early Modernists aims to facilitate collaboration between early modern researchers at Leiden University.

This multidisciplinary minor addresses the fascinating question how we, modern humans, got to be the way we are. Who were our ancestors? How does our morphology, genetic makeup, brain and behaviour relate to that of other species? How does our evolutionary past affect our susceptibility to diseases?…

How is the soil microbiome related to the nutritional value of the crop onion?