Sustainability challenges don’t just call for environmental scientists – they require expertise from many academic fields. Thijs Bosker and Paul Behrens have made it easier for university lecturers to integrate sustainability into their courses. Their initiative, Local Actions, offers ready-made teaching…

Facility, Organisation

Face masks and plastic gloves are supposed to protect us from corona, but they are becoming an increasing problem for the environment. In a special series of the New York Times, Leiden biologist Liselotte Rambonnet and alumnus Auke-Florian Hiemstra talk about their research and the special website they…

The LACDR green lab initiative is a group recently founded by employees of the LACDR. We are devoted to stimulating sustainability in our education and research! With the support of the Institute manager and scientific director of the LACDR, our main goal is making the labs more sustainable by e.g.…

Facility, Organisation

Since 24 March, the Kamerlingh Onnes Building of the Faculty of Law has been full of hundreds of colourful jellyfish. But behind that enchanting sight is a serious message: the exhibition symbolises the loss of biodiversity in the oceans due to climate change.

With his photo of a fish trapped in a rubber glove, external PhD candidate Auke-Florian Hiemstra has made it to the shortlist for the People’s Choice Award in the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. The photo shows the impact of Covid litter on wildlife.

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.

Leiden physicists Alexandre Morin and Samadarshi Maity study self-organisation and flocking phenomena. They shed light on flocking, which helps to understand how it is possible that birds in a flock don't collide. With plastic microbeads, they create an experimental setup and they developed a mathematical…

From a meaningless block of plastic to an advanced component that contributes to the energy transition. The technicians and scientists of our faculty think it out in detail and make it a reality. This special project shows that they need each other.

Each year on the university’s birthday, children at primary schools in Leiden and The Hague have a lesson from a professor – about children’s rights and robots in surgery, for example. The children get to do activities. And ask questions: ‘How do you become a professor?’

Mimicking photosynthesis to produce bioplastics sustainably and efficiently. Researchers from the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) and the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC) will assess this new approach. ‘An exciting opportunity to explore a new, appealing research topic in a collaboration between…

Everything biobased: Plastic, medicine and fuel. It seems like a futuristic utopia. But for how long? A collaboration of researchers now proposes an idea to accelerate the development process. By combining machine learning and laboratory automation, this biobased ideal may become a reality rather sooner…

Leiden researchers, Professor Remko Offringa and co-applicants Salma Balazadeh and Frederic Lens received an NWO-XL grant (2.5 million euros). Together with researchers in Wageningen and Groningen, they will study the genetic and environmental drivers of woodiness. From plant to molecule, the groups…

Why is the sky blue? Why are most people right-handed? Why are spiderwebs so strong? These are just some of the questions arriving at Postbus 71, a Leiden2022 project where everyone can ask their questions. Friso de Hartog, the driving force behind Postbus 71, is busy answering as many questions as…

CML grants three Stans Awards each year, known as the best student thesis, best PhD paper and best outreach from the past year. The CML staff nominated students and colleagues and this year’s jury Prof.dr.ing. Jan Willem Erisman and Prof.dr.ir Willie Peijnenburg made the final decision.

Buurtlab 070 is a new Leiden University project in which residents, researchers and students from The Hague work together on climate, sustainability and biodiversity solutions. What do they expect of the lab?

Would you like to take concrete steps toward a sustainable university or do you have a broad interest in sustainability? Over 200 staff members have already joined the Leiden University Sustainability Network. And there is always room for more – even if you’re no expert on sustainability, says project…

Master’s students in Industrial Ecology and Governance of Sustainability have helped answer organisations’ questions about sustainability

From an emergency fund for Ukrainian students to a golf tournament for cancer research at the LUMC: the Leiden University Fund (LUF) crowdfunding platform is full of fantastic projects that enrich the university. If you are looking for funding for your idea or special project, crowdfunding may just…

Through various initiatives, Leiden University is trying to make people aware of the importance of biodiversity: the cultivation of a wide variety of micro-organisms, animals and plant species. This is important because in the Netherlands biodiversity has declined from about 40 percent in 1900 to about…

The energy transition is already a huge challenge for society, but sustainable use of resources is even more complicated. Yet it is at least as urgent. Ester van der Voet has been working on it for decades, for example within the United Nations. Since February, she is a professor at the Centre for Environmental…

How often do you consider the impact of your choices? 10 October is Sustainability Day: a good time to introduce the new bachelor's programme Science for Sustainable Societies.

Mining for natural resources harms the environment. But we desperately need them, for both the development of countries and the transition to a sustainable energy system. Professor of Sustainable Resource Use Ester van der Voet researches how we can reduce the environmental impact of natural resources…

With the aid of physics and a minuscule magnet, researchers have discovered a new structure of telomeric DNA. Telomeres are sometimes seen as the key to living longer. They protect genes from damage but get a bit shorter each time a cell divides. If they become too short, the cell dies. The new discovery…

Tjerk Oosterkamp's group is conducting what is perhaps the coldest research in the world. The researchers have cooled a sensor to below 2 millikelvin - almost as cold as absolute zero. This allows them to make extremely sensitive measurements. PhD candidate Jaimy Plugge helped build the setup: ‘We are…

Mini organs-on-chips allow us to study how diseases develop and how drugs work. Although the technology is not new, it is becoming increasingly advanced. PhD candidate Bart Kramer hopes it will eliminate animal testing in the future.

Ammonia has been feeding the world for decades as a fertiliser and is now rapidly emerging as a carbon free fuel for shipping and industry. But if we focus only on CO₂ emissions, we risk creating new nitrogen problems, warns nitrogen expert Jan Willem Erisman in the journal One Earth.

From medicines from snake venom to supercrops and the origin of words. Thirteen researchers from Leiden University will receive Open Competition XS grants from the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

Lecture

Are you curious about how the human skeleton works? Discover this and more on 3 October in Leiden and on 4 October in The Hague.

Siemens recently took over the Leiden software company Culgi, founded by professor and inventor J.G.E.M. (Hans) Fraaije. We spoke to him about the algorithm that made him successful, the role of a university in our society and his ambitions at Siemens. ‘I was looking for Siemens, and they were looking…

PhD candidate Fien Demuynck researched how wind farms affect fish and how to minimise any negative impact.

De Faculteit Archeologie bestaat dit jaar 25 jaar. Ter ere van dit jubileum opende de faculteit op 1 maart zijn deuren voor het brede publiek.

Eight Leiden University research teams recently received €15,000 each to take their research to the next level through Una Europa. Dario Fazzi, one of the selected researchers and professor of Transatlantic Environmental History, shares how Una Europa helps him expand a Leiden-based project into a international…

Taking a Bachelor’s in Security Studies while starting and running two businesses: student Mohamed Sulaiman never stops. But he wouldn’t have it any other way. PLNT The Hague entrepreneurs’ hub is a source of help and inspiration.

Human cells are protecting their proteins from unfolding and aggregating. That's what biophysicist Alireza Mashaghi and his team discovered after seven years of in-depth research into the folding mechanisms of proteins. With an unprecedented approach, the team was able to study the folding of a single…

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…

Elephant toothpaste, a trip among the stars or a lecture on mathematical juggling: on Sunday 8 October 2023, the Faculty of Science opened its doors for the third edition of the Leiden Science Family Day. A programme jam-packed with workshops, demonstrations, lectures and peeks behind the scenes for…

Are we on the right track towards a circular economy in 2050, with fully renewable energy technology and circular construction? The CML of Leiden University, together with the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), TNO, Utrecht University and RIVM, is investigating what is needed to achieve…

Life cycle assessment (LCA) reveals the total environmental impact of products or production processes, and EU rules are going to make this even more important.

PhD candidate Jianhong Zhou aimed to better understand whether and how plant species adapt to environmental changes. She developed two databases that she used to analyze how easily or difficultly plants adapt to changing conditions. Zhou defended her PhD thesis on 4 September.

For a long time, Thijs Bosker was an average student, until he discovered how exciting learning becomes when there are no ready-made answers. To his students, he passes on one key message: hope is the driving force that keeps us moving forward. They nominated him as Lecturer of the Year.

What is the environmental impact of the fish on our plates? And is an electric car really more sustainable when we include the generation of electricity? Jeroen Guinée maps the environmental impact of products and technologies. He analyses them from raw material to waste disposal. He was appointed Professor…

About forty microscopes, various laboratories, and some 15,000 zebrafish: that’s Sylvia le Dévédec's workplace. She is one of the managers of the Leiden Cell Observatory, a unique facility accessible to all researchers.

Exhibition

Some bacteria, it turns out, have proteins much like ours that organise the DNA in their cells. They just do it a bit differently. This is revealed by new research from biochemists at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry and the Max Planck Institute for Biology. The discovery helps us better understand…