A full overview of THEOR PhD theses.

Stakeholder engagement practices are on the rise in regulatory governance. This raises an important question regarding implications for regulatory legitimacy. Engagement mechanisms are not by default legitimizing: Even when initiated to tap into an array of ‘benevolent’ desiderata, unless carefully…

This study links up the concept of place with memory, with the idea of transience and the transition from life to death.

Promotor: F. Arbab

Spectroscopic studies on fluorescent single molecules in organic condensed matter does not only provide information about the molecule itself, but also its near environment. By suppression of phonon-induced broadening of spectral lines through cooling to low temperatures, small changes in the spectral…

Promotor: M.T.M. Koper, Co-promotor: L. Juurlink

During the development of the Humanities Campus, many aspects of sustainability are combined. For example:

Promotors: Prof.dr. J. Zaanen, Prof.dr.ir. H. Hilgenkamp

Theorists have recently made substantial progress in simulating reactive molecule-metal surface scattering but still face major challenges. The grand challenge is to develop an approach that enables accurate predictive calculations of reactions involving electronically excited states with potential…

An Integrative Approach to the Hominin Record

Methods for accurately computing the interaction of molecules with metal surfaces are critical to understanding and thereby improving heterogeneous catalysis.

‘The climate crisis is the greatest threat we face,’ says Leiden University environmental scientist Paul Behrens. ‘And yet, there is hope. In the near future, I think we will wonder why we didn’t make these changes earlier.’

Netherlands and China can learn from each other to handle household and livestock wastewater more sensibly. In the FOREWARD project, scientists from Leiden, Wageningen, and China are working together with local partners on feasible solutions that advance the environment, health, and economy.

The emissions of the Chinese industrial sector alone comprise 24.1% of global emissions (7.8 GtCyr−1 in 2015). This makes Chinese industrial emissions of unique national and international relevance in climate policy. This study reports a literature survey that quantitatively describes the evolution…

We are cosmologists, in other words we use physics to study the Universe, how it started and evolved into the structure that we observe around us.

The research presented in this thesis makes use of small molecules (as H2 , D2 and O2 ) on well-defined single crystal surfaces (flat Pt(111), flat Cu(211) and curved Pt(111)) to elucidate the role of surface structure and degrees of freedom in the reactant in specific surface reactions.

Artificial photosynthesis aims to produce fuels from solar energy using chemical processes. In semi-artificial photosynthesis, a hybrid approach is taken using both chemical and biotechnology approaches. We aim to develop hybrid systems between light-harvesting nanoparticles and redox-enzymes (oxidoreductases)…

Promotor: Prof.dr. T.J. Aartsma, Co-promotor: R.N. Frese

The Dutch horticultural sector faces the challenge of becoming fully circular by 2030. Professor of Environmental Biology Peter van Bodegom is going to commit himself for four years to guiding this transition and nudging it into the right direction. Together with Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Sustainability…

Promotores: W.T. de Groot, M. Tchuenté, Co-promotor: J.P. Cheylan

The Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC) offers a unique tailor-made programme in Chemistry. You can customize the programme to your own interests and ambitions with the help of your own personal mentor. Your study will focus on either Chemical Biology or Energy & Sustainability. During the Master's…

The sustainable production of hydrogen could potentially be made more efficient by adding a cleverly chosen salt to the process. Researchers at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC), in collaboration with physicists at the University of Twente, have discovered that the type of salt present in the…

The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics states that a measurement collapses a wavefunction onto an eigenstate of the corresponding measurement operator.

Paul Behrens and his team have won the Frontiers Planet Prize of half a million euros for their research into the effects of switching to a plant-based diet.

Rong Yuang, PhD candidate from the Institute of Environmental Sciences investigated the impact of the renewable energy expansion on China’s carbon emission. On 17 May, she will defend her thesis. China is investing heavily in the development of low-carbon electricity sources, like nuclear, hydro-,…

Many of the big challenges of the 21st century (climate change, international migration, financial instability, socio-economic inequality) find their origins in the organisation of the global economy. Any solution to the world’s big challenges therefore requires forceful policy interventions at the…

Jeroen Touwen has been appointed Vice-Dean and portfolio holder for bachelor’s programmes at the Faculty of Humanities with effect from 1 January 2020. Over the coming three years he will contribute to faculty policy and will steer the BA programmes from his position in the Faculty Board.

An international team of researchers, including Federico Calle-Vallejo of Leiden University’s Institute of Chemistry, have taken the atomic-scale design of catalysts to the next level. Their research contributes to the quest for a method to generate or store energy more efficiently. The report is published…

Leiden Law Practices (LLP)

The main focus of our research programme is on adolescence, a key transitional period in human development. The programme puts emphasis on combined experimental behavioural and neural analysis of normative transitions and deviations in adolescent development.

Otrar as a Case Study for a 6-10th century Transition Zone

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…

In the last decade, the redox interconversion between metal thiolate and disulfide compounds has been extensively investigated for copper, but not for other transition metal ions.

We have conducted a full spectral line survey of the 3-13 micron region of two massive protostars, AFGL 2591 and AFGL 2136, for the first time at high spectral resolution.

On 1 September 2022 Afke van Ewijk successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Tracing Transitional English in the Twelfth Century

The Altai region has yielded a cluster of Middle and Upper Paleolithic stratified sites that have been recently excavated using a multidisciplinary approach.

This research delves into the unique cultural approach of the Tenggerese people, an Indigenous community in East Java, Indonesia, regarding elderly care. It focuses on their traditional practices of bakti (‘filial piety’) and sayan (‘mutual aid’), deeply ingrained in the community's lifestyle and va…

It might seem far away, but the end of your studies is often sooner than you think. Luckily, the International Relations and Organisations (IRO) specialisation provides the ideal basis for continued academic education and a professional career.

The NEASQC project brings together academic experts and industrial end-users to investigate and develop a new breed of Quantum-enabled applications that can take advantage of NISQ (Noise Intermediate-Scale Quantum) systems in the near future. NEASQC is use-case driven, addressing practical problems…

Leiden University offers its students a wide range of bachelor's, master's and minors that explore sustainability or climate. Here, you find an overview of those programmes in the academic year 2020-2021.

The central theme of Rik Mom’s research group is to identify what the electrode-electrolyte interface looks like when electrocatalysis is taking place. Using specialized forms of Raman and X-ray spectroscopy, we study the chemical state and bonding environment of the electrode surface and near-surface…

Research at the MCBIM group is comprised of the following research themes:

In 2021, Leiden University will develop a new Sustainability Vision 2030. This vision for the future focuses on the primary tasks of the University: integration and visibility of sustainability in our education and research.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2016 goes to David Thouless, Michael Kosterlitz and Duncan Haldane for theoretical discoveries in the field of topological materials. Haldane spent part of 2008 in Leiden; he is the 14th Lorentz Professor to win a Nobel Prize.

Sarah Giest, Assistant Professor at Leiden Univeristy, researched the topic of regulatory and market structures that affect nudge implementation by private actors, captured by the ‘budge’ idea.

This thesis describes a study from both a theoreticaL and an experimental point of view.

Solar energy harnessed by plants and algae has great potential to be converted into biofuels for future generations.