How do you combine the growth of wind energy with the protection of vulnerable seabirds? With her master’s thesis on this delicate balance, Sofie Hajer won the 2025 Unilever Research Prize. Her work provides new insights into how ecology and policy can strengthen each other.

Community Meet-up & Networking

PhD defence

PhD defence

Lecture, LUCL Colloquium

CADS Research Seminar

Roundtable

What motivates citizens to participate in a citizen science project on plastic pollution? And does that motivation change over time? Liselotte Rambonnet tried to answer these and other questions with her research on the Clean Rivers (‘Schone Rivieren’) project. Rambonnet is a PhD student at the Institute…

Even though the COVID-crisis continuously evolves and is marked by new realities and uncertainties, we can carefully begin to take stock looking back on the first phases of Dutch crisis management. What can we learn reflecting on the crisis strategies of this extraordinary and transboundary crisis that…

Ratna Saptari is since 2007 Assistant Professor at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology. She has always been involved with issues of human rights and Indonesian workers' rights. This August she retired. But she won't sit still. She continues her voluntary work and wants to…

Carmen Gonsalves has been the Dutch ambassador to Chile since this autumn. She studied history in Leiden. How useful has her degree been and what’s it like to be an ambassador? ‘Diplomacy is fascinating.’ We spoke to her just before the presidential elections.

Young Academy Leiden (YAL) will change its board this month and welcome six new members. Outgoing chair Rachel Plak and incoming chair Ahmed Mahfouz talk about what the platform has achieved for young academics over the past year and what the plans are for the future.

The Leiden Ranking – Open Edition is completely transparent. The ranking compiled by the CWTS uses open data and publishes the algorithms that are used.

Lecture, Research Seminar Medieval and Early Modern History

Friday afternoon, 1 October. Location: one of the most vibration-free places in the world. In this setting, Leiden top scientists launched Quantum Leiden. For decades, researchers at the Faculty of Science have been investigating quantum technology at the highest level and also have been brainstorming…

Whales in the vicinity of the city of Auckland, New Zealand consume large amounts of microplastics every day. A team of international researchers reached this conclusion after carefully examining whale poop. The team included Thijs Bosker, Associate Professor in Environmental Sciences at Leiden University…

How do you compare the living environment of Dutch dairy cows with that of Masai cattle in East Africa? And how can we reverse biodiversity loss? These questions are central to CurveBend, an international research consortium in which ecologist Michiel Veldhuis plays a key role.

In a lecture for the University of the Netherlands, Reijer Passchier, assistant professor in constitutional and administrative law, speaks about the state of our democracy. ‘Is it not time to upgrade our democracy?’

In a significant step toward restoring cultural heritage, PhD candidate Marie Kolbenstetter has played a pivotal role in repatriating a collection of 133 archaeological artefacts from the prestigious Musée du quai Branly in Paris back to their place of origin in southern Honduras. Her efforts underscore…

Leiden PhD candidate Jo-Anne Verschoor discovered that nearly twenty percent of the bacterial strains she studied could degrade plastic, though they needed some encouragement to do so. ‘Bacteria are just like people,’ says Verschoor. Her research was published in the journal Communications Biology,…

Is polder rice a feasible circular alternative for cows on peatland? A pilot experiment started this week. On May 22nd, researchers from Leiden University and Wageningen University & Research (WUR) planted roughly 3,000 rice plants on the Polderlab near Leiden. The researchers want to test rice as a…

The Herta Mohr Building is leading the way in sustainable innovations, for both Leiden University buildings and beyond. It is the university’s first fully gas-free building and the new Thermal Energy Storage system alone will cut carbon emissions by 150,000 kg per year. The building has an ‘Excellent’…

Russian literature is awash with disputes, riots and intense political debates. In the new Dutch podcast Schandaal en Controverse in de Russische literatuur, senior lecturer Otto Boele and film maker and journalist Kay Mastenbroek discuss the most talked-about Russian books published in the past two…

On paper it is recycled, but in reality enormous quantities of plastic waste from the Netherlands end up in Asian seas. Researchers from the Leiden Institute of Environmental Sciences charted the fate of plastic food packaging waste from the Netherlands. They published their results on July 8 in the…

Hans Slabbekoorn researches animal sounds and the effect of the noise we humans make on these animals. He is also committed to making his discipline more diverse.

The numbers of asylum seekers and the direct family members hoping to join them were not the problem, says Mark Klaassen. The stumbling block was the housing market. He says the asylum crisis is being used for electoral gain.

In 2025, Leiden University College (LUC) celebrates its 15th anniversary with the theme 'Global challenges, local impact'. To kick off this anniversary year, we have shared fifteen stories over the past few weeks showcasing how LUC students, researchers, and alumni contribute to societal challenges…

During her study of Latin America, Tineke Floor laid the intercultural foundation that has served her well in her career. Floor currently works as Director Europe at African Parks, an NGO that promotes nature conservation in Africa. How does she look back on her studies? And why the leap to another…

The Dutch conservative VVD party plans to make the right to family reunification more difficult for people with temporary residence permits. In Germany, this restriction led to several lawsuits which were won by status holders. Mark Klaassen, Assistant Professor in Migration Law, believes this is a…

175 years ago, the Netherlands took great strides towards parliamentary democracy with a revamped Constitution. Where does the Constitution stand today?

The new Dutch government must act quickly to take rapid, far-reaching measures in three specific regions to tackle nitrogen emissions. This will create the space for a long-term strategy to deal with other urgent problems and the knot of obligations that the state will need to untangle. These are the…

‘Don’t forget us. Don’t stop talking about Iran.’ In a packed lecture hall at the new Spui Campus in The Hague, a panel discussion was held this Tuesday on recent developments, tensions and the wave of state violence in Iran.