Former clients en projects

Plastics are an intrinsic part of our society. Annually, 400Mt of plastics are produced of which roughly 40% is discarded within a year.

Auke-Florian Hiemstra is the Leidsch Dagblad Person of the Year 2022.

The world is becoming clogged with plastic, with tiny plastic particles found everywhere, from the oceans’ depths to the mountain tops, soil, plants, animals and even inside us. The question is: what harm, if any, are they causing? In a new article on The Conversation, environmental scientists Meiru…

Nanoplastics can accumulate in developing hearts, according to a study by biologist Meiru Wang from Leiden University. Her research on chicken embryos sheds new light on how these tiny plastic particles pose a threat to our health.

This year Leiden University exists for 444 years! This will be celebrated together with the residents of Leiden and The Hague during various activities. One of these is scientists and residents doing research on plastics and psychology together.

What is better for waste recycling: a plastic, paper or ceramic cup? A bio-based or fossil-based coating? Waste sorting at the source or at a recycling facility? Ask ten experts and you will get ten different opinions. We can all agree on one thing: doing nothing is not an option. Thus, Leiden University…

news sustainable sustainability activities

In this project we ask: how does pollution manifest as part of different practices, both socially and materially.

Join the Pipe is a project committed to reduce plastic waste and to provide people both in the Global South and in the Global North with drinkable water.

Join the Pipe is a project committed to reduce plastic waste and to provide people both in the Global South and in the Global North with drinkable water.

Roll your sustainable sleeves! Our students and staff have found various ways to do just that, both at home and at our university.

Leiden academics Remco Breuker and Auke-Florian Hiemstra stand to win the title of Person of the Year.

What happens to the different waste streams?

Develop a prototype combined chemical-microbial enzymatical process for the sustainable, green recycling and revalorization of polyamides and polystyrene

Dutch archaeologists are making three-dimensional virtual reconstructions of archaeological objects lost in the Syrian civil war.

We are very excited to announce our Sustainability Series for 2023-2024. Each month an interactive workshop will be organised that discusses a specific theme of sustainability. Interested about sustainability? Do not hesitate to sign up to our events !

How dangerous are micro- and nanoplastics? Do they affect the environment? What harm can they do to our bodies? Questions that we can now finally answer because of Fazel Abdolahpur Monikh. Together with his colleagues, he developed a method to detect and quantify nano-sized plastics. Their paper has…

Overlevingsanalyse is een onderzoeksgebied dat zich richt op het bestuderen van de tijd tot het optreden van een specifieke uitkomst.

On 22 June, Anneke Koning defended the thesis 'Return to sender: a multi-method study of guardianship against transnational sexual exploitation of children'. The doctoral research was supervised by Joanne van der Leun, Masja van Meeteren and Johan van Wilsem.

From where litter ends up to which languages are spoken in Leiden and The Hague: over 50 interesting, surprising, complex and entertaining questions were sent in for the Citizen Science project to mark our 444th anniversary. Not one but two Citizen Science projects will be starting this year in Leiden…

Plead

Leiden Law School is working hard to improve sustainability both in education and teaching within the faculty, at our campus and in our research. You can read all about the university's vision and ambitions, recent developments in this area, our current sustainability projects and how students and…

What is the effect of pesticides, fertilizers or plastic on water quality? And how do wind and rain affect the data? These are just some of the things that Leiden environmental scientists study in the 32 ditches of the Living Lab.

Have you spotted the special voting bins on campus yet? Send us your suggestions for challenging, non-scientific questions and who knows? Your burning question might just be the next butt-kicker!

duurzaamheidsthema's onderzoek

Mission: The Environmental Biology department aims to increase the scientific understanding of how current and emerging anthropogenic threats affect biodiversity and ecosystem services. Through this understanding they facilitate strategic management of natural resources by addressing urgent challenges…

Lecture

Within the Comparative Religion Network staff and graduate students from LIAS-LUCSoR (and beyond) discuss ongoing work and cooperate on key issues in the comparative and systematic study of religion.

Voor zowel archeologen, paleontologen en geologen als vrijwilligers in de archeologie en paleontologie is het geen verrassing meer dat op de stranden van de Nederlandse kust fraaie vondsten gedaan kunnen worden. Vele artikelen, boeken, tentoonstellingen, congressen, lezingen, ‘zoekdagen’, krantenberichten,…

The opening of the Academic Year 2017-2018 took place on Monday 4 September 2017 in Pieterskerk church.

Our institute contributes to multiple curricula. 

New technology offers many new possibilities for research, such as on dementia. ‘Organ-on-a-chip’ is a new technology in which small bits of organ are grown out of stem cells on a small plastic plate. A small piece of blood vessel, heart or nerve offers many new possibilities for research, such as…

Leiden University's Citizen Science Lab supports and organizes initiatives where anyone can get started with scientific data and research. This is how we enrich research with insights from the community, make science accessible to all, and tackle important local issues together.

Netwerk en projecten duurzaamheid verduurzaming green office en green team

Lets hit the water! Our students joined us on Saturday 30 August 2025 for a Stand Up Paddleboarding (SUP) and canal clean-up session on Leiden’s canals with Plastic Soup Surfer Merijn Tinga.

Product packaging is essential. It prolongs shelf-live and highly influences purchasing decisions. However, it’s also a big source of waste, especially single-use plastic. Have you ever felt conflicted choosing a product due to the material it’s packaged in? Or opted for a different product due to its…

Western thought has often dismissed shadows as fictional, but what if fictions reveal original truths?

Projects in the department of Environmental Biology

Diacylglycerol lipases (DAGLα and DAGLβ) convert diacylglycerol to the endocannabinoid 2-arachidonoylglycerol. Our understanding of DAGL function has been hindered by a lack of chemical probes that can perturb these enzymes in vivo.

Hoe kan de City Deal Kennis Maken bijdragen aan het formuleren van maatschappelijk relevant onderzoek dat de stad in al haar diversiteit centraal stelt? In de stad Leiden zijn burgers momenteel maar in beperkte mate betrokken bij het bepalen van de agenda van de lokale City Deal Kennis Maken. Dit onderzoeksproject…

Interest groups play an important role in democratic society.

In the Department of Business Sciences, three chairs are established. Together, the chair holders lead the Turnaround, Rescue & Insolvency Leiden Research Team (TRI Leiden), which consists of legal and business science researchers from Leiden Law School. TRI Leiden aims, through an international and…

The new cabinet threatens to cut nearly a billion euros from higher education. This not only endangers academic work, it is a disaster for the Netherlands itself. The proposed penalty on study extensions and other financial measures will heavily impact students and will reduce education accessibility.…

It’s Not Easy Being Green – but we’re here to help! Do you want to live more sustainably but have no idea where to start? Are you interested in making the world greener and do you want to get to the bottom of hot topics? Or are you sceptical about climate change and do you want to hear about the…

Adoptees in the Netherlands generally do not use more medication than their non-adopted peers.

Learning from nature and utilizing microbial biodiversity to identify and characterize enzymes for degradation and upcycling of plastics and other polymeric materials.