We carry a profound responsibility for our research animals and strive to provide them with the best possible quality of life. In our studies, we make every effort to avoid and minimise discomfort for the animals. Below, you can learn more about how this is put into practice.

Synthetic cells, also known as artificial cells or protocells, have wide ranging applications from drug delivery vectors to cell models. In biotechnology they can function as micro- or nanoreactors with possible applications in biocatalysis and photocatalysis. Phospholipids are by far the most commonly…

Does a moving hybrid zone leave a genomic footprint?

Hybrid Intelligence (HI) is the combination of human and machine intelligence, expanding human intellect instead of replacing it. HI takes human expertise and intentionality into account when making meaningful decisions and perform appropriate actions, together with ethical, legal and societal values.…

The Animal Welfare Body Leiden (AWB) is an internal entity responsible for the well-being of all laboratory animals at Leiden University and the Leiden University Medical Center. It is actively involved in all aspects of research involving animals. The AWB has several legal responsibilities, including…

Hybrid zones occur where two species meet and produce offspring (hybrids). Typically, hybrids show a considerable reduction in fitness. In this thesis two hybrid zones are treated.

Brendan Carroll promoted On Thursday October 30th Brendan Carroll successfully defended his PhD dissertation entitled:

This article explores how notions of citizenship are negotiated in encounters between parents and youth care professionals in Amsterdam in the context of heated debates over citizenship and belonging. We draw on ethnographic research on Egyptian migrant parents’ interactions with the welfare state,…

This paper explores how citizenship is enacted and experienced in welfare encounters for Egyptian migrant parents in Paris, Amsterdam, and Milan, highlighting the importance of social citizenship and personal interactions in shaping belonging.

In this article, Samir Negash, PhD candidate at the Institute of Public Administratation, discusses the discrepancy in European countries between the measured impact of immigration on the welfare state and how this impact is perceived by citizens.

This dissertation explores how Large Language Models (LLMs) can effectively and responsibly contribute to complex decision-making processes. By combining AI and human intelligence, Hybrid Intelligence (HI) emerges, allowing the strengths of both humans and machines to be utilized.

On 20 January 2022, Marco Stam defended the thesis 'Essays on Welfare Benefits, Employment, and Crime'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. M.G. Knoef.

Recent welfare reforms in the Netherlands show a trend of reducing welfare accessibility and increasing obligations. Although the effects thereof on directly-targeted economic outcomes, such as welfare dependency and labor participation, are often assessed, potential spillovers to other economic and…

Provides a cutting-edge comparative political economy analysis of welfare and inequality across ten East Asian countries.

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

This book offers novel perspectives on the national and international dimensions of the post-war welfare state in Western Europe and North America.

This edited volume provides a synthesis on the question of business attitudes towards and its influence over the development of the modern welfare state. It gathers leading scholars in the field to offer both in-depth historical country case studies and comparative chapters that discuss contemporary…

This thesis investigates how quantum, quantum-inspired, and hybrid quantum-classical computation can enhance key points of the automated machine learning (AutoML) pipeline under the constraints of noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices.

A comparative analysis of legitimation strategies in tree hybrid regimes: Russia, Venezuela, and Seychelles.

Emily Wolff, PhD candidate at Leiden University, wrote a paper about the inclusion of imperial citizens in the Dutch post-war welfare state.

Religion, Class, and the Postwar Development of the Dutch Welfare State. Dennie Oude Nijhuis.

There are about 35,000 students with chronic illnesses in the Netherlands. If they cannot receive education in the classroom, they may be able to do so from home or a hospital with hybrid education. The question in this study is: how can interaction with the teacher and fellow students be promoted?

A Josephson junction is a device where a thin insulating barrier or a nanostructure is placed between two superconducting leads. Such a junction is essential to superconducting qubits that store quantum information due to its anharmonic spectrum.

How were (post) colonial migrants included in post-war welfare systems?

Analysing the ways in which immigration structurally challenges and changes the organization and conceptual boundaries of national welfare states.

This project involves research into the oeuvre of the Sundanese sculptor Iko, who has worked for the Catholic mission in Java and has carved sculptures for a chapel and church in Ganjuran. The images were designed by the Catholic layman Jos Schmutzer and are characterized by a fusion in style and symbolism…

Metal complexes and 2D materials like graphene were combined to produce structures that can function as sensors.

On 12 November, Clare Fenwick defended her doctoral thesis, The Political Economy of Immigration and Welfare State Reform: A Collection of Comparative Political and Economic Essays on Human Mobility and Social Protection. The PhD research was supervised by Olaf van Vliet and Kees Goudswaard.

In general, there are significant health disparities between people with low and high incomes, particularly in countries with an extensive welfare state like the Netherlands. PhD candidate Janna Goijaerts researched how the organisation of the welfare state affects the health of vulnerable people.

What would happen if there were fewer migrant workers in the Netherlands? Olaf van Vliet, Professor of Economics, discussed this question on Dutch news site NU.nl.

On 2 April 2025, Anna Marhold, a member of the Peace and Security Committee of the AIV and Assistant Professor at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, joined a technical briefing to parliament providing advice on hybrid threats and societal resilience.

Bart Schuurman sheds light on the alarming trend in both the frequence and geographical spread of these incidents with The Parliament Magazine.

Samir Negash, PhD candidate at Leiden University and Olaf van Vliet, Professor by special appointment Comparative Welfare State Analysis at Leiden University wrote a paper regarding the topic of immigration and the conditionality of unemployment benefits in OECD countries.

Our annual "Science to Experience" exhibition of student works is hosted by the V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media. This year's theme is "HYBRID".

From 11-13 April 2019, a group of 11 students from LUC and the Advanced MSc. programme in International Relations and Diplomacy attended the event NATO@70 in Portugal – Countering hybrid threats with hybrid containment: NATO’s mission for the 21st century. Leiden University’s participation in the event…

Since September, a large part of education is 'hybrid': students can attend courses both at home (online) and in person in lecture halls. How do students themselves feel about this? We asked Emma and Cornelia of the Research Master Classics and Ancient Civilizations.

A systematic approach to quantify impacts of food consumption on animal welfare has been developed by researchers of the Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University in collaboration with ETH Zurich, and effective altruism organizations.

Promotor: H.J.M. de Groot

As a result of globalisation, migration and technological advances, politicians have to make complex choices about social security and labour market policy. Professor by special appointment Olaf van Vliet will speak about this topic in his inaugural lecture on 7 June.

Dutch citizens are not opposed to additional earnings and financial gifts for people on welfare, but believe it is important that there should also be an obligation to look for a job. This was the outcome of a research project on the opinions of Dutch people regarding the implementation of welfare p…

It is often thought that immigration threatens the solidarity on which redistribution relies. But looking at the post-war period, PhD candidate Emily Anne Wolff finds that this is not the case.

In this paper, the authors outline how the UK and USA adopt the Chilean pension model without proper attribution, potentially distorting the lessons.

Recently, the so-called refugee crisis has been framed as a threat for well-developed welfare states in Europe by the president of the Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem. According to him, external borders have to be guarded, because otherwise ‘loads of people will come to demand support and they blow up…

‘It is OK for employees to work flexibly, as long as they spend 40 hours in the office’, said Elon Musk in June 2022. Are we back where we started now that the pandemic is over? What is needed to make flexibility prosper? Helen Pluut is researcher in Organizational Behaviour at Leiden University and…