National parochialism is the tendency to cooperate more with ingroup than outgroup members. Angelo Romano, Matthias Sutter, James Liu, Toshio Yamagishi & Daniel Balliet studied national parochialism across different nations and conclude in their publication in Nature Communications that it is a ubiquitous…

This PhD project investigates the forms, functions, meanings, and socio-cultural values embedded in Palenda, in order to understand how it reflects and shapes the worldview of the Muna people (Mieno Wuna) through metaphor.

Chemical reactions go hand-in-hand with an energy exchange with the environment in which they take place. Surfaces offer a variety of energy dissipation channels, constituted by the nuclear and electronic degrees of freedom of the atoms at the interface. Aiming at an improved future harvesting of energy,…

This perspective addresses four challenges facing theorists whose aim is to make quantitatively accurate predictions for reactions of molecules on metal surfaces, and suggests ways of meeting these challenges, focusing on dissociative chemisorption reactions of H2, N2, and CH4.

Is our musicality unique? To find out, the Bird Singalong Project brings together singing parrots from all over the world. Do you have a parrot that sings or whistles along to songs and would you like to help us? Sing up now!

Research projects for students of the University of Leiden and other Dutch Universities are often available at the MacBio group. The research lines are also described in the Research section. For details of specific projects contact the supervisor (Ubbink, Dame, Boyle, Jeuken or Wentink).

The local ordering of atoms at the surface of a metallic particle determines its catalytic activity and selectivity. As energy systems of the future will be based on efficient catalytic conversion of small molecules in closed cycles, we study how structural effects of catalysts can be used to our ad…

Research at the THEOR group is comprised of the following research themes:

The World Politics Major at Leiden University College The Hague examines the big ideas and the powerful forces – political, military, economic, social and cultural – that shape the world at every level, from the global to the local and everything in between. Political conflict is a key driver of many…

Promotor: Jelle S. Kaastra Co-promotor: Jelle de Plaa

Promotor: J. Schaye

Metal complexes and 2D materials like graphene were combined to produce structures that can function as sensors.

Nowadays, it is well known that hydrogen and helium (and small traces of lithium and beryllium) were created shortly after the Big Bang, while the heavier elements are created in the cores of stars at different evolutionary stages. When these stars explode as supernovae, they expel metals synthesised…

Catalysis is of extreme relevance in the production of everyday materials and plays a central role in many aspects of our life.

Indigenous Latin American artifacts have attracted the interest of Europeans since the earliest moment of contact between Europeans and the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. The ERC-funded BECACO project uses an innovative multidisciplinary framework to investigate the provenance of ethnographic and…

How the systematic destruction of valuables created value in Bronze Age Europe, c. 2300-500 BC

1000 Years of World History in 100 Old Maps.

Optimally solving real-world expensive Black-Box Optimization (BBO) problems w.r.t. real-world constraints, such as wall-clock time and computational costs, is extremely difficult and tedious.

In Humanity’s End As A New Beginning, Emeritus Professor Mineke Schipper reflects on myths about ‘the end’.

In this opinion article published in World Development, the authors present five research and policy priorities. While it is clear that ‘pluriversal’ designs need to guide the way forward (Kothari et al 2019), defining a set of key pillars can provide direction and purpose across this pluriversality.…

Leiden physicists have been awarded 1.5 million euros for developing a hybrid microscope that provided nanometer-resolution. 'The idea is to combine the resolution of electron microscopy with the pros of optical microscopes.'

Galaxies form and evolve through close interaction with their surroundings. As a result, the heavy elements ('metals') that are synthesized in stars, are found both inside and outside galaxies.

The goal of this thesis is to understand how interfacial parameters, such as the addition of organic additives, bulk pH or metal cations of the electrolyte, affect the relevant electrocatalytic reactions, i.e. electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction or hydrogen evolution reaction.

We use DNA strands to stabilize few-atom silver clusters, which show unique optical and chemical properties. This thesis involves the study of these constructs for various applications.

Promotor: M.T.M. Koper, Co-Promotor: L.B.F. Juurlink

Heterogeneous catalyzed processes are highly significant to the chemical industry. Dissociative chemisorption (DC) of molecules on surfaces is always considered as a step with a high degree of rate control for heterogeneous catalysis.

An Investigation into the role of copper-alloy craft production in the early medieval economy of northwest Europe.

This book examines the history of The Netherlands in a way that connects global processes to local developments.

Classical mathematical models treat space and time as a continuum, while it is sometimes more useful to regard it as granular. Hupkes is studying what this means for a number of important patterns that are often found in computer calculations and in nature.

Insect egg development in a warming world: the eco-evo-devo of embryonic developmental time: What is the genetic basis of developmental time?

This thesis explores how electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy can be used to investigate key biochemical processes.

The World of the Fullo takes a detailed look at the fullers, craftsmen who dealt with high-quality garments, of Roman Italy. Analyzing the social and economic worlds in which the fullers lived and worked, it tells the story of their economic circumstances, the way they organized their workshops, the…

On Tuesday 10 September 2024 May Shaddel Basir successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

A portrait of the complex historical process of over 500 years of European colonialism in the New World.

This book examines the critical role of information and knowledge in early modern Europe's global pursuits, exploring challenges in trusting distant information, the development of doubt in intercultural encounters, and the impact of misinformation.

Are there general principles or values that should govern our actions as moral agents and/or as political subjects?

Science Magazine has published three back-to-back papers on an important discovery in solid state physics. Leiden physicist Jan Zaanen wrote a Perspective article on the subject in the same issue of 4 March.

NTER-SECTION is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal focusing on contributions from junior archaeological researchers at Leiden University. The journal offers an accessible platform for the publication of individual research by undergraduate and graduate students. The Editorial Board consists of PhD…

Lecture, Seventh Annual Austrian Studies Lecture

Imagining the Americas in Print contains eleven essays, seven of which have been published before and four of which are new.

Bachelor projects are available in

This book published by Oxford University Press discusses religion and trade in world history.

Bacteria caught red-handed, deeply frozen just as they were about to cause Lyme’s disease. Ariane Briegel is wildly enthusiastic about the wonders she observes thanks to three elements: a freezing technique, a camera-equipped microscope, and AI. ‘It’s fascinating. Every single cell is different.’

Surface plasmons (SPs) are surface waves at the interface between a dielectric and a good metal, and are formed by the interaction between light and the free electrons at the metal-dielectric interface. They provide strong field confinement for optical fields, opening new possibilities for enhanced…

The emissions of the Chinese industrial sector alone comprise 24.1% of global emissions (7.8 GtCyr−1 in 2015). This makes Chinese industrial emissions of unique national and international relevance in climate policy. This study reports a literature survey that quantitatively describes the evolution…