An international team of astronomers, including Professor Koen Kuijken, has published a series of online articles presenting the first results of a major search for dark matter. Never before have researchers been able to chart so precisely the characteristics of groups of galaxies and their dark matter.…

To argue that people can control the relative contributions of goal-driven and stimulus-driven processes to decision-making and action selection.

International Relations and European Politics is one of the three organisational clusters of the Institute of Political Science.

The enormous adaptability of the cholera bacterium explains why it is able to claim so many victims. Professor Ariane Briegel from the Leiden Institute of Biology has now discovered that this adaptability is due to rapid sensory changes in the bacterium. Publication in PNAS.

A team of laboratory astrophysicists from Leiden University managed to make glycerol under conditions comparable to those in dark interstellar clouds. They allowed carbon monoxide ice to react with hydrogen atoms at minus 250 degrees Celsius. The researchers publish their findings in the Astrophysical…

In line with tradition, the opening of the academic year will see the presentation of the LUS Teaching Prize to the University's best lecturer. Get to know the nominees. This week: Kim Beerden.

An Honours Class about the ostensibly unrecognisable worlds of insular Southeast Asia teaches students a fundamental piece of wisdom:

A breakthrough from the PhD research of medical chemist Elmer Maurits may help patients with autoimmune diseases and blood cancer in the future. But bringing a discovery from the lab to the clinic is not so easily done. Thanks to NWO's Venture Challenge, Maurits and his team will receive ten weeks of…

Speech Prosody 2024 includes seven special sessions. When making a submission, authors are asked to indicate whether they want their paper to be considered for a special session. You can find descriptions of each below.

Within the same species of butterfly many different wing patterns can occur. How is this possible? According to researchers Ben Wielstra and Emma Berdan, of the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), the answer lies within supergenes. A supergene is a part of a chromosome that contains many strongly linked…

The life of a fibroblast is heavy, but PhD student Julia Eckert makes it 19.5 times heavier, using the Large Diameter Centrifuge at the ESTEC space research centre in Noordwijk.

How did “free agents” (entrepreneurs operating outside of the myriad of interests of the centralized, state-sponsored monopolies) in Western Europe and the Ottoman Empire react to the creation of colonial monopolies (royal monopolies and chartered companies) by the central states in the Early Modern…

Sharing scientific data, transferring money, or sending other sensitive information online: with cryptography, applications make sure your data does not fall into the wrong hands. Mathematician Thomas Attema (CWI/TNO/Leiden University) helps with this. For his PhD research, he developed a new technique…

This year a record number of students - more than 3,500 - will be taking part in the EL CID introduction week. Who are they and why did they opt for Leiden University? 'I want to get the absolute most out of my student time.'

Physicists propose the existence of sterile neutrinos that would explain three big mysteries in nature. To actually find them in particle accelerators, researchers need to know how they are produced and how they decay. PhD candidate Kyrylo Bondarenko has made predictions about this, which are currently…

An attractive feature of the MSc Chemistry programme at Leiden University is the great flexibility of the study programme, allowing students to put together a tailor-made programme following their personal interests. Within the limits set by the programme, students can make their own choices and adjust…

In the field of Western art music, improvisation has become a much discussed topic. In this interdisciplinary study I argue that in this context, improvisation is not to be seen as a quasi-autonomous skill or art form, but as an aspect of music-making in general.

In the Netherlands approximately 130 out of 700 secondary schools offer a bilingual stream. However, research about CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) is limited. With her dissertation Evelyn van Kampen (PhD student at ICLON) wants to contribute to the understanding of the nature and range…

In high school, Tim van Erven read about an artificially intelligent algorithm that could solve mazes. From that moment on, he was sold: ‘There’s something magical about algorithms. With a list of fixed rules you can make them learn the most diverse things.’ This year, he won a Vidi grant, which he…

Professor of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry Marc Koper has been appointed as member of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (KNAW). 'Very honourable, I see this as a confirmation of my work,’ says Koper.

The brains of adolescents react more responsively to receiving rewards. This can lead to risky behaviour, but, according to Leiden University research, it also has a positive function: it makes learning easier. Publication in Nature Communications.

What are the immediate and lasting effects of the colonial encounters on indigenous Caribbean cultures and societies and what were the intercultural dynamics that took place during the colonisation processes? How can the study of indigenous Caribbean histories contribute to a more sophisticated awareness…

Astronomers want to understand the Universe, from the Big Bang to the present day, and what the future will hold. In Leiden they focus on two key questions: ‘How did stars and planets originate’ and ‘How were galaxies and black holes formed in the young Universe?’ A new generation of telescopes – just…

A vibrant chronological narrative of ceramic manufacturing practices in the valley of Juigalpa, Chontales, Nicaragua (cal 300 CE - present)

When it comes to languages and cultures, Leiden University is the university. The global expertise present places our university at the top. In Leiden and The Hague, we study languages and cultures from all regions of the world and from prehistory to the present day. In this way we create a broad view…

If you are interested in Life Science and you are looking for a programme with ample opportunities to put together your own study path, our Life Science and Technology programme is the right choice. The programme focuses on societal problems at the molecular and cellular level.

A master in Psychology at Leiden University combines theoretical knowledge with academic and professional skills, making you an attractive candidate for many employers.

View the programme structure for the MSc International Politics at Leiden University: semester layout, ECTS credits, core courses, and the September intake in The Hague.

In this article, Marco Cinelli, assistant professor at Leiden University College The Hague, examines proper and improper uses of Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) methods in energy systems analysis.

Leiden physicist Alexey Boyarsky, together with his colleagues from Lausanne and Copenhagen, has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant to research an extension of the standard model of particle physics. The leading house of the project is the Technical University of Lausanne. 580.000 euro goes directly…

As Lila Abu Lughod pointed out in 1989, North Africa has been one of the geographical ‘zones of prestige’ for the development of canonical approaches and crucial theoretical debates regarding the comparative study of Islam.

Master

Can photography embody the emotional and interpersonal aspects of home as well as participate in the social, political, and cultural debates on homemaking?

This dissertation examines the European Union’s response to the growing problem of disinformation. It uses this case to critically analyse how societies interpret and manage information challenges such as ‘fake news’ and propaganda.

Which features characterize speakers’ voices, and how are these features determined by what a speaker is saying?

This study examines how European state administrations responded to transboundary crises over the past 30 years and the extent of their successful adaptation.

How can formative assessment be used to promote teacher professional learning? This book contains various studies into professionalization approaches and courses in which formative assessment is used with a view to teacher learning.

On 15 February 2022, Morshed Mannan defended the thesis 'The Emergence of Democratic Firms in the Platform Economy: Drivers, Obstacles, and the Path Ahead'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. I.S. Wuisman and Prof. J.A.A. Adriaanse.

The present investigation aims at exploring whether the instruction provided at secondary schools in the capital meets the requirements of Communicative Language Teaching and whether the aims of improving learners’ communicative proficiency are met.

This research examines the social, political, and cultural forces that structure people’s responses towards accented speech, and further uses the accent as a focal point to theorize the interrelation between language and body.

A single self-assembled semiconductor quantum dot in a high-finesse optical microcavity - the subject of this thesis - is an interesting quantum-mechanical system for future quantum applications. For instance, this system allows trapping of an extra electron and thus can serve as a spin quantum memory,…

The goal of the MODOMA-project is to create a computer model of language acquisition.

The development process of any software has become extremely important not just in the IT industry, but in almost every business or domain of research.

Bernard Bernards examines constraints on innovation by focusing on cognitive uncertainty as a personal state that may affect innovative work behavior.

On the 4th of November, Aliza successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Aliza on this achievement!

This PhD-thesis analyses the relationship between the parties’ choices in the CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis’ assessments of the election manifestos and coalition agreements over the period 1986-2017, and tries to explain this relationship.

The Global Order in Historical Perspective specialisation focuses on how power relations are structured, from the great politics of global governance to diplomatic culture in regional and national perspectives through transnational alliances.

Learn how to conduct policy-oriented research, join one of our field schools and gain relevant working experience.

In an increasingly complex and security-challenged society, the CSM programme, Governance of crisis, provides you with the theoretical and practical skills to understand the issues underlying security challenges and develop solutions for crisis and security management.