Alumnus Ben Smulders has worked for the European Commission for the past 33 years. ‘The discipline and depth that I experienced during my student days has helped me through various stages of my professional career.’

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.P. van Wezel, Co-Promotor: E. Vijgenboom

Actinobacteria are Gram-positive bacteria that have a complex multicellular life cycle and are well known for their ability to produce a wide range of bioactive natural products (NPs).

The central question in this book is whether there is a human right to family unification.

The PID-directed shift in PIN polarity has been broadly accepted as one of the essential mechanisms for the regulation of auxin transport polarity.

Dit proefschrift beschrijft een collectie aan alternatieve strategieën voor het begrijpen, ontwerpen en toepassen van lipide nanosystemen, waarin de rol van de bio-nano interacties centraal staan. In het bijzonder wordt gekeken naar de interactie van RNA-lipide nanosystemen, bekend van de toepassing…

Irna Hofman defended her thesis on 10 January 2019.

Promotor: P.J.J. Hooykaas, Co-Promotores: P.B.F. Ouwerkerk, M. Wang

The transition period in which men become fathers might provide an important window of opportunity for parenting interventions that may produce long-term positive effects on paternal care and, consequently, child development. Existing prenatal programs traditionally focus on maternal and infant health…

On Friday 7 March 2025 Adam Knight successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

This project is funded by the Dutch Cancer Society. The project will be part of an ongoing research line aimed at identifying mechanisms of cancer therapy resistance and metastasis. In this project, it will be investigated how the Grainyhead family of transcription factors controls therapy response…

While many healthcare professionals indicate that they frequently use placebo effects and their mechanisms, there is little formal training on how to deal with placebo and nocebo effects in clinical practice. This project aims to address this gap between scientific knowledge on placebo and nocebo effects…

Nematic liquid crystals form the key ingredients of most tv screens. The active version of these complex fluids forms a useful model for physicists to research the responses of active matter—like bacteria or traffic flows—to mechanical and geometrical cues. An international research team publishes their…

On 3 December 2018 Melanie Fink, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Europa Institute, spoke at the Conference ‘Managing Migration Through Criminal Law Tools’.

What is the effect of training children to exercise self-control? Niko Steinbeis has been awarded a major European subsidy to find the answer to this question. The innovative aspects of this research are the target group, an individual approach to the training and examining the child brain the scann…

Ben de Jong and Paul Abels, both working for ISGA, discuss the Russian claim that espionage equipment was found in Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad (AD). According to the Russians the equipment was found in one of the cars used by their diplomats in The Hague.

Rigid materials break more easily than floppy ones. This simple observation allows to predict and control the width of cracks. Theoretical understanding of how materials break is useful in for example the production of cars or screens. Publication in PNAS.

Reijer Passchier universitair docent Staatrecht in Leiden en hoogleraar Digitalisering en de democratische rechtsstaat aan de Open Universiteit, presenteerde op 11 februari zijn bevindingen over het gebruik van digitale systemen bij de uitvoering van wetten, aan de Vaste Kamercommissie Digitale Zaken,…

Jorrit Rijpma responds in Dutch newspaper the Volkskrant to attention surrounding the reintroduction of border controls in the Schengen area.

How did the Arabs manage to maintain an empire based on Islamic principles for three hundred years? Arab expert Petra Sijpesteijn and her team will be examining this question over the coming five years, focusing on the correspondence of ordinary people. The research is being funded by an ERC Consolidator…

How did Fustat develop between 640 and 750 to become the capital of Egypt? At the time Egypt was a province of the Islamic empire - the caliphate - that had been started by the prophet Muhammad. Original sources used by Arabist Jelle Bruning give new insights into the city. PhD defence on 2 April.

On Friday 16 May Juul Eijk successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Which criteria do ED patients and therapists evaluate as most relevant for recovery? Do patients and therapists differ in their evaluations? Do eating disorder patients differ from a healthy control group in their scores on the Recovery Scale?

On 6 October 2018 Maarten Aalbers presented the first findings of a research paper, he is currently co - writing with Dr. Ben Van Rompuy, at the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels.

Technology is spreading its tendrils into the classroom. But who is in control?

Assistant Professor of European Studies and International Relations Daniel Schade was a guest on Deutschland Heute on Deutschlandfunk and spoke about the recent Schengen evaluation report by the European Commission.

Nature, nurture and neural mechanisms of social emotion regulation in childhood

In ancient times, the desert in the Udhruh region in Jordan was transformed into a green oasis. An intricate network of underground water channels was part of an ancient system of water management, storing water and preventing loss through evaporation. Archaeologist Mark Driessen found a new way to…

The increasing competition in the automotive industry requires the tailored, swift development of technologically sophisticated vehicles. Therefore, the computationally expensive state-of-the-art simulation technologies are combined with optimization algorithms. An example of a real-world optimization…

Master student Encyclopedie en filosofie van het recht Marlotte Roldaan vertrok in januari 2024 voor vijf maanden naar de Verenigde Staten om daar in San Francisco te gaan studeren. Haar advies voor mensen die twijfelen: ‘Gooi jezelf in het diepe’.

Researchers at Leiden University have demonstrated that tumours can apply mechanical means to attract the blood vessels they need to be able to grow. The team published this discovery on 2 March in Nature Scientific Reports.

Leiden University has published a research report on the working of the Temporary Act on the Transparency of Fast-track Liquidation in the Netherlands. The Act aimed to facilitate faster and more transparent business termination. Has this been achieved?

On 7 and 8 October, a two-day workshop will be hosted by the Van Vollenhoven Institute in collaboration with the University of Oxford’s Border Criminologies network and the Social Citizenship & Migration assisted area. The theme of the workshop will be ‘Border policing, boundary creation and emotion…

Promotor: Prof.dr. G.P. van Wezel

At the start of his PhD, intelligence analyst William Lippert didn’t yet know what to expect. Little had been written on the subject. Three years later, he is sure: conventional arms control agreements promote peace.

It recently emerged that a Swiss firm secretly owned by the CIA and the West German intelligence service BND had been selling manipulated coding equipment to numerous governments, including allies, to spy on them through a Swiss cover firm for years.

The Schengen Agreement has resulted in systematic border controls between EU Member States largely ceasing to apply. Solutions for the associated security risks are often sought in information technology. Tim Dekkers investigated how such technology is applied in this context and will defend his PhD…

Thursday February 2nd, 2017 Prof. dr. Janne Bengtsson from Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala has given a lecture called:

Astronomers from Leiden University have discovered that the star wind from a newborn star in the Orion Nebula prevents more stars from forming in the immediate vicinity. They made the discovery with data from the SOFIA observatory. This was announced by co-author Xander Tielens during a press conference…

Why are not all children equally responsive to variations in the social environment?