Vaccines are an extraordinary category of biopharmaceuticals. They are usually prophylactic and come in many types, from whole bacteria to peptides and nucleic acids. They are very cost effective and almost every human on the planet is vaccinated. The latter mandates that vaccines have to be extremely…

Which genes are involved in woodiness and associated traits such as drought tolerance, flowering time, stem elongation, life span, and plant herbivory, and how do these gene regulatory pathways overlap?

No nation-state can solve today's global challenges on its own. In the specialisation International and European Governance you will obtain a deep understanding of the interplay between the international, EU, and (sub)national governance systems and how this interplay affects the capacity of public…

Kirsten Kanneworff and David Dechant defend their PhD research on quantum physics at Leiden University. Fundamental work with applications in location verification and the financial world.

How can we understand the material instability of photographic (mixed media) artworks (1960s - present) from an integrated approach of Art History, Conservation Science and Chemistry in order to preserve these works for the future?

How can collaborative participatory action research by student-teachers and their students enhance student participation, improve educational practices, and generate knowledge about these practices that can be used for improving teacher education as well?

What was the relationship between women and modern media in different parts of Asia in the 20th century? Under what historical and social conditions did women achieve prominence in popular music in Asia?

Optimally solving real-world expensive Black-Box Optimization (BBO) problems w.r.t. real-world constraints, such as wall-clock time and computational costs, is extremely difficult and tedious.

Since 2005 Leiden fieldschools have maintained local collaborations with archaeologists on Martinique carrying out surveys and excavations.

This unique, interdisciplinary Master focuses on the interaction and gaps between the “law on the books” and the “law in action.” It combines theories and methods from both law and the social sciences to the practical operation of law. The core curriculum equips students with the conceptual approaches…

Dr. Moritz Jesse, Associate Professor at the Europa Institute, presented two papers at the General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) which took place in Oslo, Norway, in September 2017.

On December 16, 2023, our respected and beloved former colleague prof.dr.ir. Bert Peletier passed away.

This abrupt climate change of 8200 years ago (the so-called 8.2k calBP climate event) has received wide attention among natural scientists, also because of today's rapid climate changes and their impact on our own society. The archaeological implications, however, have not been investigated so far.…

Researchers have spent years looking for the ‘missing link’ between wolves and dogs. But many of the domesticated dogs that had been found prove to have been wolves after all. This is what vet and archaeologist Luc Janssens says in his dissertation. PhD defence on 27 June.

International experts from several academic disciplines came to Leiden on Friday 8 and Saturday 9 December 2017 to participate in the international conference 'The

Tailoring teaching to students’ learning needs in speaking skills in modern foreign languages is desirable, but difficult to achieve in regular classes in secondary schools. Esther de Vrind, PhD, manager and teacher educator at ICLON, developed a method to make this easier. Defence on 25 November.

The monograph

On 28 October 2022, Yao Yuan spoke at the conference in Rome on 'Understanding national security concerns in light of FDI screening', jointly organised by Università Telematica internazionale UNINETTUNO and Uppsala University.

To be eligible for Physics at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

To be eligible for Physics and Education at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

Meet our team

The Institute for Philosophy at Leiden University is host to the NWO programme,

The Middle Paleolithic site of Neumark was first discovered in the 1980’s by German geologist Matthias Thomae.

To be eligible for Physics and Business Studies at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

To be eligible for Research in Physics, Biological and Soft Matter Physics at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

To be eligible for Research in Physics, Cosmology at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

Wetlands provide many ecosystem goods and services which include fish production. The sustainability of small-scale fisheries (SSF) has received considerable attention in recent years because fish is one of the major sources of animal protein to a considerable fraction of the global population which…

To be eligible for Physics and Science Communication and Society at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

To be eligible for Physics and Classical/Quantum Information at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

To be eligible for Research in Physics, theoretical at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

To be eligible for Research in Physics, Quantum Matter and Optics at Leiden University, you must meet the following admission requirements.

In the specialisation Child and Adolescent Psychology , part of the Master in Psychology, you develop practical skills in assessing and managing developmental psychopathology.

Following a period of intensive discussion, the University Council (UR) approved the University Quality Standards Plan on 10 December. The UR endorses the content of the plan in broad terms and is pleased with the extra efforts made by the University.

It has been a coming and going of satellites and spaceships near the moon. It has not been this busy in years. There are currently more than ten moon missions in progress and another five are being scheduled for next year.

Making migration a key campaign issue in the recent Dutch general elections is one thing, but turning it into actual policy is another. ‘95% of Dutch immigration legislation is governed by European law’, says Emeritus Professor Peter Rodrigues in Dutch daily newspaper 'Trouw'. In short: political parties…

On Monday May 8th, two Leiden Startups took part in the finals of the Philips Innovation Awards. One Leiden venture, Levels Diagnostics, was selected as the winner of the €10.000,- price in the category of ‘Rough Diamonds’.

On 11 May 2016 a prestigious NWO Vidi grant (NWO's Innovation Research Incentives scheme) has been awarded to Nadia Soudzilovskaia for her research proposal entitled “Do mycorrhizal fungi mediate soil carbon fate?”, aimed to understand mycorrhizal impact on soil carbon sequestration.

Unlike Dutch and English, most languages employ melody not only to add nuance to sentences but also to differentiate between words. How languages do this remains largely unknown. This project will investigate the linguistic, psychological and neural processes underlying the parallel communication of…

The research of Cathelijn Waaijer shows that scientific careers and especially their early part consist of a succession of short-term posts, or ‘quanta’; hence the title of the dissertation 'Quantized Careers'. PhD defence 24 November, 2016.

‘The Netherlands’ response to coronavirus is inconsistent.’ These are the words of Leiden political scientist Arjen Boin, an expert in crisis management. Vulnerable groups such as the elderly need more personalised advice. ‘It would be better to cancel bridge tournaments than football games.’

Plants that grow in patterns of stripes on the edge of deserts, plankton that live on the sea bed or oscillate in the water, and melanomas that spread throughout the body. Mathematician Lotte Sewalt discovered the common elements in these three systems. PhD defence 8 September.

On Thursday 16 November 2017 Thomas Leclerc will defend his PhD Dissertation ‘A Corrective Approach to Reduce Aircraft Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Contribution to the Study of Interactions between Legal Orders of International Law’. The defence will commence at 13.45 hrs, at the Academy Building of Leiden…

While investigating 16 years of images of young stars from a retired astronomical camera, Leiden master's student Sam de Regt discovered that two of those stars were still enveloped in birth clouds. Never before has anyone captured these two stars in so much detail. He publishes his data-cleaning method…

The newly created European Law Unbound Society (ELU-S) held its inaugural conference on 25-26 September 2025, at the Charles University in Prague. Vincent Delhomme presented a paper and chaired a panel, both dealing with contemporary challenges in EU internal market law.

The Leiden Archaeology social media team presents its first documentary on one of our faculty's research projects. A team led by Bleda Düring, Victor Klinkenberg, and Maria Hadjigavriel explores the Cypriot Chalcolithic period in Palloures, Cyprus.