A festive and honourable visit to our southern neighbours for professor Marc Koper. On Thursday 23 March, he received an honorary doctorate at the University of Antwerp. Koper gets the title in recognition of his expertise in the field of electrochemistry. ‘An important recognition for our research…

The new interdisciplinary bachelor's program in Science for Sustainable Societies starts in the 2025-2026 academic year.

The Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations aim to improve all issues simultaneously: social, economic, and environmental outcomes. However, a new study shows that eliminating extreme poverty and reducing income inequality often leads to higher environmental impacts. Therefore, additional…

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

The global agri-food system plays a critical role in food security and environmental issues.

Today marks the launch of the LDE Bachelor Honours Programme Sustainability. Students from Leiden University, TU Delft and Erasmus University will work together on concrete sustainability issues of organisations. Interest in the new programme turned out to be overwhelming. Two lecturers involved share…

Canal Cups, Auke-Florian Hiemstra and Liselotte Rambonnet’s project to rid Leiden of disposable plastic cups and its canals of litter, has taken 59th place in Trouw newspaper’s Top 100 sustainable initiatives.

Leiden University has joined the Hague Climate Agreement. This comprises 38 climate deals aimed at making The Hague climate neutral by 2030.

Professor of Fungal Genetics and Biotechnology Arthur Ram explains how fungi can help us be more sustainable.

The opportunity to explore a new, exciting research topic. That is how Lennart Schada von Borzyskowski describes his successful application for the NWO XS grant. It comprises 50,000 euros, which the researcher from the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) will spend on investigating a more sustainable…

A partnership with the Leiden Leadership Programme: what does it bring you? Two partner organisations in the field of sustainability, Arcadis and Bioto, share their experiences: “It's great to be surprised by new insights.”

By 2050, more than 70 per cent of the world’s population will live in cities. A group of International researchers has developed software that shows city planners where to invest in nature to improve people’s lives and save billions of dollars.

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.

Industrial ecologists Stefano Cucurachi and Flora Siebler are part of the new consortium PROGENY, which received 3.6 million euros from the European Commission. PROGENY is an exciting project that will study the possibilities of soap films for innovations, such as ultra-thin screens.

The project MiCRop receives 20.3 million euros from the Gravitation programme of the Dutch Research Council (NWO). MiCRop will unravel the microbial community around crops. This knowledge will help to develop more sustainable crops that require fewer fertilizers and pesticides. Leiden professors Jos…

SEECR-CONGO aims to strengthen the doctoral education ecosystem in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in order to foster a new generation of highly skilled researchers who can contribute to academia and the wider labour market.

Warm Sweater Day, February 7th & Week of Sustainability, February 10th-14th

On 21 June 2024, the student-based initiative EU Talks?! was delighted to host its second event in the form of a panel discussion entitled 'Sustainable ambition vs. agricultural consideration'.

From energy transition to the nitrogen crisis: artificial intelligence can be of great help. Researchers from the three universities in Zuid-Holland are seizing the opportunity. Three of them talk about collaborative research in the AI for Energy and Sustainability focus group within the Zuid-Holland…

The Farm to Fork Strategy seeks to transform the EU food system towards greater sustainability. To do this, Vincent Delhomme argues, some of the traditional concepts and doctrines in EU internal market law need to be challenged and rethought.

On April 12th three students majoring in Earth, Energy, and Sustainability (EES) from Leiden University College participated in the annual conference of the Netherlands Center for River Studies.

It is one of the energy carriers of the future: hydrogen. But how can hydrogen be produced in a sustainable way? With over 50 million euros in funding from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research(NWO) and industry, a research project involving 58 partners from both the Netherlands and abroad…

On Friday 12 November 2021, the Net Zero Space initiative was launched at the Paris Peace Forum. The International Institute of Air and Space Law (IIASL) of Leiden University is one of the first supporters to the initiative.

The world’s population is expected to rise to 9 billion people in 2050. At the same time, climate change urges us to dramatically reduce our use of resources. Does the transition to a circular economy offer us a way out, and if so, how? Master Honours Class’ students are looking into this issue: ‘Change…

The sustainable production of hydrogen could potentially be made more efficient by adding a cleverly chosen salt to the process. Researchers at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC), in collaboration with physicists at the University of Twente, have discovered that the type of salt present in the…

This book provides the answers, presenting clear insights into the current state of affairs and exploring future prospects.

This systematic review of 68 English-language articles explores the roles of customary authorities in environmental governance in sub-Saharan Africa

Theorists have recently made substantial progress in simulating reactive molecule-metal surface scattering but still face major challenges. The grand challenge is to develop an approach that enables accurate predictive calculations of reactions involving electronically excited states with potential…

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.

Bachelor projects are available in

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…

Climate change is one of the largest challenges faced by humanity. To combat this research into alternatives to fossil fuels is ongoing. Dihydrogen is considered a good alternative fuel, since its burning only forms water.

Cultural biographies of persons, objects and 'natural' places in the Bronze Age of the Southern Netherlands, c. 2300-600 BC.

Promotores: Prof.dr. J. Aarts, Prof.dr. J.M. van Ruitenbeek

The focus throughout this thesis will be on gathering fundamental studies of the detailed structure and composition of the electrode/electrolyte interface effect on the rate and mechanism of key electrocatalytic reactions.

Despite the history of studies on methanol formation from CO2, the dominant elementary reaction steps that constitute the chemical mechanism for this catalyzed process are not determined.

Materials with strongly correlated electrons show some of the most mysterious and exotic phases of quantum matter, such as unconventional superconductivity, quantum criticality and strange metal phase.

The main subject of this thesis is the design and synthesis of paramagnetic molecules for protein studies with NMR and EPR spectroscopy.

In condensed matter systems electron-electron interactions, negligible in everyday metals, can dramatically alter the electronic behavior of the system. Examples of such altered behavior include high-temperature superconductivity and modulation of the electron density.

Leiden University has developed a radically different method for large scale production of diverse nanoparticles and their alloys.