Imagine you’ve accidentally sent the wrong grade transcript to a student or you've left your laptop on the train; a momentary lapse of concentration can result in a data breach or security incident. By responding quickly, we can limit the damage and consequences for privacy: both your own and the university’s.…

If you travel abroad for your work, you can claim expenses for lodging, meals, minor costs and transport. The amount reimbursed depends on the country you travel to. You must have approval to travel from your manager.

Congratulations on your awarded grant. Here is a checklist of what to do next and who you will need to involve to get your project started.

The COIn grants enable researchers to improve the infrastructure for their research. The initiators of two projects explain how the grant has helped them.

Why are morpho butterflies blue? That is what high school students Frederique Kerstens and Koen van Griensven investigated in their high school profile paper at the Leiden Institute for Research in Physics. In doing so, they won the KHMW Profielwerkstukprijs 2023. ‘We didn't expect it, but are of course…

In the future top Dutch speed skaters may skate even faster thanks to a skate full of electronics. This ‘measuring skate’ gives top skaters and coaches information about the skater’s technique and motion. It can measure the dynamics at play between the foot, the ice and the skate.

More than 700 visitors got to know the Science Faculty during the Leiden Science Family Day. People of all ages could enjoy fascinating experiments, tours, interesting lectures, spectacular nitrogen shows and various workshops. It was an informative day with many (future) scientists, amazement and,…

Multidrug-resistant pathogens and worldwide pandemics are increasing, making infectious diseases more prevalent. To develop new treatments, deeper knowledge of the interaction between bacteria and human cells is required. Ariane Briegel recently became a Medical Delta professor and studies such path…

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing, what exactly does he do and what does his day look like? In each newsletter, Jasper gives an insight into his life.

Medical psychologist Willeke Kitselaar developed a model that helps identify patients with persistent somatic symptoms earlier, based on an extensive large medical database. ‘I advise GPs to ask patients to fill in a questionnaire about both physical and mental symptoms at an earlier stage.’ PhD defence…

Researchers need to work in specialized environments when they work with dangerous bacteria and viruses. These microbes spread easily, so only in labs with a high biosafety levels they can be studied. Unfortunately, to look at the microbes properly, expensive microscopes are needed that are not always…

Physicist Remko Fermin from Leiden University was awarded a Rubicon grant from NWO. He will use it to study superconducting diodes that could contribute to reducing the CO2 emission of data centres.

A new graphene-based method could make for faster, cheaper and more accurate DNA sequencing, say a group of Leiden physicists and chemists.

Bacteria whirl around in the mouths of most people, forming dental plaques and sometimes causing nasty gum infections. Treponema denticola might be a dangerous pathogen, but not much is known about this bacterium. It was up to Ariane Briegel and her research group to change that.

To mark the university’s 450th anniversary, the Leiden Discoveries science route has been updated and was relaunched on the Night of Discoveries. New signs in town and a revamped website tell Leiden residents and visitors the stories of the city’s spectacular discoveries.

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…

From Thursday-Friday 28-29 April 2022 the Stichting Bob Wessels Insolvency Law Collection (BWILC) invites PhD students from Europe and beyond to participate in a fourth edition of the PhD workshop on European/International Insolvency Law.

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…

Jasper Knoester started on 1 January as our new dean. How is he finding it, what kinds of things is he doing and what does his day look like? In every newsletter Jasper gives us a peek into his life as dean.

We are pleased to announce the creation of a new committee dedicated to data management practices at the LACDR. With the increasing amount of data being generated by our institute and the implementation of the newly acquired Electronic Lab Journal RSpace, it is essential to manage and organize our research…

Professor Alexander Ollongren passed away on March 25 at the age of 96.

How can you ensure that more experimental drugs reach the finish line? At the moment, only one in twenty cancer drugs that are tested on humans makes it to the market. This is an enormous loss for patients and society. With a grant from the National Growth Fund, Oncode-PACT aims to efficiently select…

The Netherlands has DigiD, Portugal ‘de Cartão de Cidadão’, and Ireland MyGovID. Europe now wants one uniform digital identity card - the same for all Member States. For the Dutch government, the European successor to DigiD is a prestige project. State Secretary Van Huffelen wants to roll out an app…

The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) appointed Professor Thomas Bäck as an IEEE Fellow in the class of 2022. Bäck is becoming a Fellow for his contributions in synthesising evolutionary computation. Less than 0.1% of voting members are selected each year for this member grade…

Thanks to a €4.8 million grant from the Dutch Research Council, a consortium that includes four physicists from Leiden University will develop a national facility for atomic-scale research into novel materials. This initiative is expected to drive innovation for energy transition.

A passion for video games, visuals and science: it almost seems impossible to bring all of this together. Yet, scientific animator Vera Williams found that dream combination at NeCEN's microscopy lab. 'An image or animation can help clarify the content of complex research.'

Bringing together chemists and physicists to thoroughly investigate how electrochemical processes work on the smallest scale. That is the goal of the new Advanced Nano-electrochemistry Institute of the Netherlands, or ANION for short. The consortium receives a Gravitation funding of 23.6 million euros…

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…

Defending your PhD research in front of nearly 300 elementary school students: that was the challenge faced by PhD candidates Jo-Anne Verschoor and Marinka de Willigen during the VUURVLIEGEN competition organised by the Centrum JongerenCommunicatie Chemie (C3). After an exciting competition, the children…

Leiden scientists and companies receive 1.37 million euros to develop technology for the Einstein Telescope. This underground telescope will measure gravitational waves and must therefore be extremely sensitive. To that end, the consortium conducts research on the damping of vibrations at temperatures…

A new AI model will soon be able to predict the risk of infection in postoperative patients. This will allow healthcare providers to take preventive measures and detect complications at an earlier stage.

Amidst the lathes and welding machines of the Fine Mechanics Department, Emiel Wiegers is working concentratedly on a metal cylinder. He and his colleagues design and construct components for researchers' set-ups. ‘We are a bunch of inventors who enjoy helping the researchers in our Faculty.’

Jasper Knoester, decaan van de Faculteit Wiskunde & Natuurwetenschappen, blikt terug op 2025 in "het jaar van Jasper".

LION

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…

From Wednesday-Thursday 19-20 April 2023 the Stichting Bob Wessels Insolvency Law Collection (BWILC) invites PhD students from Europe and beyond to participate in the 5th edition of the PhD workshop on European/International Insolvency Law. Following four successful editions, PhD students are invited…

If your work allows it, you can work partly from home and partly at the University. How this combination of working from home and at the University will turn out for you depends on your own working activities and situation and those of your team. This means that tailor-made solutions are needed.

Lecture, Tuesday Talk

Conference

Thursday was World Hearing Day. During one of the Leiden2022 activities, visitors to Corpus Museum could learn all about ears and test whether theirs worked properly. How exactly does an ear work? What solutions are there for deaf people and what is a bionic ear?

Research

Much of the work of Serge Fehr, Professor of Quantum Information Theory, is abstract and theoretical and comprehensible to very few people. But his work helps make the digital world safer so that in future our internet banking will still be problem free, for instance. He will explain more in his inaugural…

An international team of astronomers has discovered a large reservoir of hot gas in the cluster-in-formation around the Spiderweb Galaxy. Based partly on that hot gas, the astronomers predict that the cluster-in-formation will grow into one of the largest objects in the universe. A step closer to discovering…

‘Working in Leiden is a dream come true.’ Ákos Kovács studied in his birth country Hungary and worked in Germany, Denmark and Groningen. As professor of Microbiome Ecology at IBL, he immediately started working together with his new colleagues to make discoveries about the versatile bacterial species…

There were no bitcoins or artificial intelligence when our civil code was compiled. This could cause problems.

ACPA alumnus Gabriel Paiuk is releasing a new album, titled Degrees of Transparency, on the Unsounds label.

Jianfeng Ge and Milan Allen of Leiden University look for majorana quasiparticles using shot noise measurements

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing, what exactly does he do and what does his day look like? In each newsletter, Jasper gives an insight into his life.

A suitcase as a messenger of quantum science. That is the idea behind QuanTour, a project connecting researchers from 12 European universities. In December, the suitcase landed in Leiden. A month later, it is time to pass the baton to Copenhagen. But what happened to it in Leiden?

Understanding the proces of electrochemical reactions is essential to improve the technology for the energy transition. Fuel cell cars, for example use hydrogen produced from the electrolysis of water. Mariana Monteiro did fundamental research on the process and won two prizes with her thesis.