Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) implies that societal actors (researchers, citizens, policy makers, business, third sector organisations, etc.) work together during the whole research and innovation process in order to better align both the process and its outcomes with the values, needs and…

Certain cichlid fish in Lake Victoria seem to have adapted super-fast to changing circumstances. Dr Frans Witte from the Integrative Zoology section has been awarded an NWO subsidy (approx. € 240,000) to carry out PhD research into the rapid changes apparent in this fish species.

Plants produce an astonishing variety of secondary metabolites (SMs) which are thought to play vital roles in the fitness of plants through ecological interactions.

A global biological study has provided the most direct evidence to date that humans, and specifically cities, are the drivers of evolutionary change on Earth. Leiden University, Naturalis and the Municipality of Leiden worked on and helped fund the study.

This dissertation examines the European Union’s response to the growing problem of disinformation. It uses this case to critically analyse how societies interpret and manage information challenges such as ‘fake news’ and propaganda.

To gain more insight into the evolutionary development of orchid flowers and fruits, the orchid species Erycina pusilla was studied. The evolutionary origin of the median petaloid sepal, the callus on the labellum, and the stelidia was studied.

Promotor: S.M. Verduyn Lunel, Co-promotor: O.W. van Gaans

Lecture, Harold Linnartz Astrochemistry Prize lecture

Newts of which half of the offspring die before birth. Evolutionary biologist Ben Wielstra is investigating how this can exist in nature. In his research he collaborates with Naturalis Biodiversity Center.

Promotor: Prof.dr. P.G.L Klinkhamer

On 17 November 2017 the Board of the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA) in The Hague welcomed the Mayor of Leiden, Henri Lenferink, and Alderman Paul Dirkse for a working visit, and introduced them to the campus in The Hague. During the visit, a memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed…

Dr Johannes Magliano-Tromp has been appointed Director of Leiden University Interfacultary Dual PhD Centre The Hague as of 1st May 2016.

More attention to the needs of PhD Candidates who are not employed at universities, but combine their research with a professional career outside the academic world. That was the main wish expressed at the workshop Supervision of dual PhD candidates, organized at the Wijnhaven building in The Hague…

An international team with researchers from Leiden revealed how a bacterium repurposed an internal system to control its movements. Movement control is very important in host invasion, which can lead to disease. Publication on 27 April in Nature Communications.

Ben Wielstra strives to unravel the evolution of balanced lethal systems. On 1 February he started his own lab at the Institute of Biology Leiden. Wielstra is one of five researchers at Leiden University who has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant in 2018 by the European Research Council. ERC Starting…

This project combines an extensive new open database on linguistic distributions, spatial modelling and areal linguistics in order to disentangle the roles of social and environmental factors on the emergence of linguistic diversity patterns of South America.

Antoaneta Dimitrova, Professor Comparative Governance at Leiden University, Honorata Mazepus, Assistant professor at Leiden University and Dimiter Toshkov, Associate Professor at Leiden University, together with three other authors researched which aspects of state capacity might contribute to opening…

Leiden University's Kiem grants aim to help develop new interdisciplinary and interfaculty collaborations and encounters. In the first round, a Kiem grant was awarded to a group of researchers from the Faculty of Archaeology, the Faculty of Social Sciences, and the LUMC for the organisation of a symposium…

Does Artifical Light at Night (ALAN) disrupt seasonal physiological and behavioral patterns in migrating freshwater fish?

Do natural soundscapes affect migratory decisions of fishes moving up and down rivers and is this process disturbed by vessel sounds?

A study by an international group of scientists headed by Prof. Michael Richardson showed that asymmetry in the snake lungs manifests itself early in development.

Hemin Hawezy, a political & international government adviser, has started as a dual PhD candidate at Leiden University. Bram Klievink and Toon Kerkhoff are supervising his research on the organisation of digitalisation in government; a good example of transdisciplinary collaboration.

What the Sex Lives of Bugs, Birds, and Beasts Tell Us About Evolution, Biodiversity, and Ourselves, Menno Schilthuizen reports from the front lines of evolutionary biology, on a quest to make sense of the origins, workings and evolution of our and other species’ reproductive selves.

The logic seems inescapable indeed. The bigger the population, the higher the probability it contains an Einstein. Hence, bigger populations are more likely to develop complex culture.

Seven new Medical Delta professors revealed their research plans in a lecture marathon on 21 June. The professors at Leiden University, the LUMC, Delft University of Technology and the Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam operate at the interface between life sciences and health and technology.

Do offshore windfarms affect the local biodiversity of the pelagic fish community and are fish deterred or attracted by sounds?

The Early Upper Palaeolithic (EUP) record throughout Europe is characterized by major changes in human behaviour.

The explosive radiation and diversification of the advanced snakes (superfamily Colubroidea) was associated with changes in all aspects of the shared venom system. Morphological changes included the partitioning of the mixed ancestral glands into two discrete glands devoted for production of venom ormucous…

This thesis has shed light on some of the ways in which the local electrolyte composition can differ from the bulk and how these changes in the local reaction environment can determine the activity and/or selectivity of two important electrocatalytic reactions, namely, electrochemical CO2 reduction…

How did digital intermediality symbolise and facilitate the transfer of content from popular culture into policy statements and vice versa in the period between 1945 and the new millenium?

This dissertation is part of a broader research project that revolves around unraveling the evolution of balanced lethal systems.

Promotores: Prof.dr. P.M. Brakefield, Prof.dr. B.J. Zwaan (Wageningen Universiteit)

Promotor: Prof.dr. E.F. Smets, Co-promotor: Dr. V.S.F.T. Merckx

Lecture, Sociolinguistics & Discourse Studies Series

PhD defence

In Slaving Zones: Cultural Identities, Ideologies, and Institutions in the Evolution of Global Slavery, fourteen authors—including both world-leading and emerging historians of slavery—engage with the ‘Slaving Zones’ theory.

Evolution is all around you every day. This is the message of the new Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) of Leiden University and Naturalis that begins on September 19.

A new analysis of the king cobra genome by Michael Richardson, Christian Henkel (IBL) and collaborators at the IBL and Naturalis, Helsinki and Singapore has been published in

The main purpose of DNAmarkerpoint is to better understand the ecology, evolution and biodiversity through the study of ancient- and modern DNA.

The Leiden University Shii Studies Initiative (LUSSI) is hosting a two-day online conference on Islam and Evolution.

In a recent article published on PLOS, Drs. Briana Pobiner and Ryan McRae of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History discuss the top 13 discoveries in human evolution in 2023.

Promotor: E. Gittenberger, Co-promotores: L.P. van Ofwegen; B.W. Hoeksema

Leiden archaeologist José Joordens has been awarded a Veni grant to develop her research on the role of climate change in early hominin evolution.