Promotor: Prof.dr. S.F. Portegies Zwart

The Leiden University doctoral / PhD programme takes around four years of study and consists of independent and original research under the supervision of a professor.

What is the effect of transgovernmental networks on the principles and practices of democratic accountability within national central governments?

There is an increasing amount of attention on EU and its Member States contributions to implementation of two landmark agreements: the Paris Climate Agreement and the UN Agenda 2030 with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Absent from the current literature is an analysis of the political effect of…

Introductory courses, Seminars and Minor Economics and Dual Programs

This monograph, written by dr. Dennie Oude Nijhuis and published by Cambridge University Press, discusses the postwar development of the welfare state.

This thesis describes the design, synthesis, and immunological evaluation of varying (neo)antigenic peptide conjugates containing either a TLR2 or a TLR7 agonist.

Tapping to a rhythm, recognizing sound patterns and enjoying music: For people, it is common sense. But is this also the case for animals? It is the research topic of Michelle Spierings, a researcher at the Institute of Biology Leiden, and it is nominated for the Klokhuis Wetenschapsprijs.

Birds around airports are more aggressive and sing as if they have hearing loss. Collaboration between researchers of Manchester Metropolitan University and the Institute of Biology Leiden has led to surprising new findings about the impact of anthropogenic noise on birds around airports. Publication…

Fishes rely heavily on sound to find their way during migration or dispersal. Many species are affected by noise pollution. Hans Slabbekoorn from the Institute of Biology Leiden received a HORIZON2020 grant of 500,000 euros to study the impact of sound conditions on movement decisions of fishes.

Master's student Thalia Luden receives an NWO grant for her research proposal about a gene that brings flowering plants back into a growth phase. Companies in floriculture and vegetable seed breeding also contribute to the research.

‘It was a discovery we did not expect,’ says Remko Offringa, professor of Plant developmental genetics. Today he publishes a new trait of a versatile gene in Current Biology: it makes the difference in plants between herbaceous and woody stem growth. A useful feature to prevent dehydration.

That a parrot can copycat sounds is nothing new. But vocal learning is not common in animals. Researcher Carel ten Cate of the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) of Leiden University has now discovered a duck species that can imitate sounds. ‘It started with an obscure reference about an Australian musk…

Producing offspring of a crop without sowing and that is even bigger than the parent plant. According to Leiden researchers this can be achieved by overstimulating a single gene that rejuvenates cells, including bringing them back to the embryonic phase.

Circumstellar discs are the reservoirs of gas and dust that surround young stars and have the potential to become planetary systems.

The Faculty of Archaeology at Leiden University is home to many experts on human evolution. The following staff members are part of the Leiden Human Evolution Collective.

For a long time, bird song was considered as a typical male trait. But over the last twenty years, research has shown that a lot of female songbirds sing as well. Female scientists turned out to be the key factor in these findings, amongst others from the Institute of Biology Leiden.

We spoke with Mathilde Witkam about her research as a dual PhD candidate at the Dual PhD Centre. Her dissertation is about the effect of open government on public trust. Mathilde: ‘Trust in government ensures that people are more honest in their tax returns; less control saves time and money.’

A new study carried out by Leiden archaeologists Hadar Ahituv and Amanda Henry, together with international colleagues, reports the identification and analysis of 650 starch grains preserved on basalt percussive tools (anvils and hammerstones) found at an early Middle Pleistocene site in Israel. These…

Paul Brakefield, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the Institute of Biology in Leiden (IBL) has been awarded an ERC Advanced Grant for his research. He will receive 2.5 million euro to develop his research programme over a period of five years.

The mycorrhizal symbiosis is among the most widespread species interactions on Earth⁠. This thesis focuses on orchid mycorrhiza, a unique mycorrhizal type that has caught scientists’ attention for centuries⁠.

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F. van Dishoeck, Co-promotor: S. Bruderer

The research aims to explore the evolutionary adaptability of enzymes and the impact of temperature on protein evolution pathways, using M. tuberculosis β-lactamase BlaC as the object of study. Enzymes inherently embody a delicate balance between activity and stability, and the acquisition of new enzymatic…

Promotor: Prof.dr. E Gittenberger, Co-Promotores: C.H.J.M. Fransen, Dr. B.W. Hoeksema

Asexual procreation in female wasps leads to an accumulation of genetic mutations, and the shrivelling of their sex organ. Leiden biologist Ken Kraaijeveld published this discovery in Evolution. His research is one of the first experimental studies into the consequences of asexual procreation.

Cut marks on the bones of bears show that people in North-West Europe used bearskins to keep warm 300,000 years ago.

Harvesting rice from the same field, without planting new rice plants? A discovery may bring this scenario closer. Leiden scientists have discovered a gene that allows annual plants to grow after flowering, instead of dying. Publication on 13 April in Nature Plants.

Pigeons, zebra finches and parakeets. Carel ten Cate studied bird sounds. But not just that. Together with linguists from Leiden, he investigated parallels between birdsong and language. On 9 June, his farewell symposium was held to mark the end of his broad career. Well, the end? Carel ten Cate has…

Leiden evolutionary biologist Maurijn van der Zee has co-operated on an enormous international project to describe the genetic material of the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum. The more than 100 authors involved in the project have published their findings in the online magazine PLoS Biology.

In support of the research and education, the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS) has a Research and Education laboratory at its disposal. Within this environment, we can offer machines that go beyond normal office automisation and production.

Diverse types of exoplanets such as gas giants on close-in orbits (hot Jupiters) and young massive giants on wide orbits (super Jupiters), with no analogs in the Solar System, pose challenges but also opportunities to our understanding of planet formation and evolution.

During the development of the (human) body from a single fertilized egg, organs and structures must form. The development and growth of biological forms is called morphogenesis.

Lecture

Promotor: Prof. dr. A.G.G.M. Tielens

Two years ago, Amanda Henry joined the Faculty of Archaeology’s Archaeological Sciences department. She investigates diet and human evolution, with a specific focus on plant foods. ‘Most of the studies on the prehistoric diet focus on meat and hunting. This just didn’t make sense to me.’

Information about doctorates and application procedures for PhD positions at ICLON

Are you interested in one of our vacancies? To get to know each other well, we follow a number of steps in the application process.

At Leiden University you’ll have every opportunity to broaden your horizon. We’ll stimulate you to get the best out of yourself, with additional, more challenging programmes, for example.

How do inclusion and exclusion affect people?

The scientific research of the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs is organised around a number of centres and institutes in The Hague, city of peace, security and justice.

Every year, around 400 PhD candidates defend their dissertation at Leiden University, spread across all the University’s different disciplines.

If male budgerigars can successfully open a puzzle box with food, they become more attractive to females. Biologist Carel ten Cate and Chinese colleagues published experimental evidence for this in a paper in Science on 11 January. Various Dutch and international media wrote about the paper.

How can mentors and social workers foster the vocational identity of at-risk youth and improve their prospects?

What contributes to the successes and failures of governance networks in small to medium-sized Western European host cities in attracting International Organizations?

Do recent developments in the European security architecture signal the end of multilateral cooperation, or the beginning of a new era with emerging forms of international security collaboration?

In this article, Thijs van Dooremalen and Philip Smith investigate how public discourse of heatwaves have shifted in British newspaper discourse, drawing on Raymond Williams’s theory of dominant, emergent, and residual cultural patterns to analyse changes in language and interpretation over recent d…

The Leiden Risk & Regulation Lab serves as hub for excellent research at the forefront of regulation and risk governance and acts a platform for engagement with the practice of, and education in, regulation and risk governance.