The enormous adaptability of the cholera bacterium explains why it is able to claim so many victims. Professor Ariane Briegel from the Leiden Institute of Biology has now discovered that this adaptability is due to rapid sensory changes in the bacterium. Publication in PNAS.

A team of laboratory astrophysicists from Leiden University managed to make glycerol under conditions comparable to those in dark interstellar clouds. They allowed carbon monoxide ice to react with hydrogen atoms at minus 250 degrees Celsius. The researchers publish their findings in the Astrophysical…

Sharing scientific data, transferring money, or sending other sensitive information online: with cryptography, applications make sure your data does not fall into the wrong hands. Mathematician Thomas Attema (CWI/TNO/Leiden University) helps with this. For his PhD research, he developed a new technique…

This year a record number of students - more than 3,500 - will be taking part in the EL CID introduction week. Who are they and why did they opt for Leiden University? 'I want to get the absolute most out of my student time.'

In high school, Tim van Erven read about an artificially intelligent algorithm that could solve mazes. From that moment on, he was sold: ‘There’s something magical about algorithms. With a list of fixed rules you can make them learn the most diverse things.’ This year, he won a Vidi grant, which he…

Professor of Catalysis and Surface Chemistry Marc Koper has been appointed as member of the Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen (KNAW). 'Very honourable, I see this as a confirmation of my work,’ says Koper.

The brains of adolescents react more responsively to receiving rewards. This can lead to risky behaviour, but, according to Leiden University research, it also has a positive function: it makes learning easier. Publication in Nature Communications.

How do you ensure that people who have had a stroke get the right therapy at the right time? This is the question researcher Jorit Meesters wants to answer.

Mimicking photosynthesis to produce bioplastics sustainably and efficiently. Researchers from the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) and the Leiden Institute of Chemistry (LIC) will assess this new approach. ‘An exciting opportunity to explore a new, appealing research topic in a collaboration between…

Data and information should be stored in a way that computers can understand, says Barend Mons, professor of Biosemantics at the Leiden University Medical Center and Chair of the High Level Expert Group for the European Open Science Cloud. We speak with him about FAIR data, knowlets and nanopublicat…

Artificial intelligence systems are smart. They can recognize patterns better than humans, for example. Yet humans are still very much needed. How can you better steer those AI systems? LIACS lecturer Jan van Rijn wrote a book about this together with a number of colleagues. We asked him a few quest…

Wiebe Ruijtenberg (Law/VVI), Nadia Sonneveld (Law/VVI), Paul van Trigt (Institute for History) and Jasmijn Rana (CADS) have received a KIEM grant of € 10.000 for their project ‘Making up Migrants / Disabled: The pasts, presents, and futures of human classifying’. The grant will be utilised to organize…

Listening to birds and helping science, it is possible. Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) researchers Karan Odom and Katharina Riebel launched a citizen science project to improve the worldwide documentation of female birdsong.

Arnold van der Valk on Food Council MRA.

The research contained in this dissertation explores the origins of fire making in prehistory, focusing primarily on the fire use practices and fire production capacities of Neandertals.

Over recent years Leiden University has taken some significant steps forward in innovation in teaching and learning and in diversity. But there is still a lot to be done. These were the comments by governors, lecturers and scholars during the farewell seminar for Vice-Rector Simone Buitendijk on 27…

Mapping out the problem of plastic pollution requires a lot of data over a large area. That's why scientists are increasingly turning to volunteers for help, also known as citizen science. But what are the challenges for a researcher when he or she involves the public in research in this way? Four Leiden…

In this article, Marco Cinelli, assistant professor at Leiden University College The Hague, examines proper and improper uses of Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) methods in energy systems analysis.

Nanoplastics influence the behaviour of larval zebrafish, says new research by the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) and the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML). The researchers observed that a certain type of nanoparticles leads to stress reactions in the sugar balance, resulting in hyperactivity…

Political scientist Rebekah Tromble (Leiden University) has been appointed as an academic advisor to the Social Science One research commission. She will assist the commission in its new partnership with Facebook, which aims to facilitate in-depth studies of the role of social media in elections and…

Despite the promising effects of technology in assessment and treatment, the actual use of novel technologies in juvenile justice context remains limited. We want to inspire researchers to develop and investigate technological applications for assessment and treatment for justice involved youth.

What are the goals of healthcare? That very question must be asked more frequently before healthcare-related choices are made. This is what Martine de Vries, Professor of Normative Aspects of Medicine, advocated during her inaugural lecture on Friday, 2 November 2018.

This summer, PhD students Marta Maggioni and Rosa Winter went to Africa. Not just to enjoy the beautiful continent, but also to stir up the enthusiasm of young students for mathematics. They volunteered at math camps in Kenya and Ghana. ‘I think it is important they experience the fun of maths.’

Two Vidi subsidies for Faculty of Archaeology.

Innovations only achieve true success when people actually use them. PhD researcher Max van Haastrecht developed a cybersecurity app for small businesses and learned how essential it is to align technology with real-world practice.

It was a huge task, but it was worth it: Marieke Liem and her research group have completed a database of all murders committed in the Netherlands over the past 25 years. She will share their initial findings in a three-part lecture series organized by Studium Generale. ‘Beggars kill other beggars;…

Artificial intelligence systems are smart. They can recognize patterns better than humans, for example. Yet humans are still very much needed. How can you better steer those AI systems? LIACS lecturer Jan van Rijn wrote a book about this together with a number of colleagues. We asked him a few quest…

In this article, Bart Schuurman and Sarah Louise Carthy conduct further research into the understanding of the causes of terrorism by assessing differences and similarities between left-, right- and jihadist extremists and terrorists. The article draws on the Analysen zum Terrorismus, one of the most…

The car we buy is made out of thousands of components, which are produced using different types of materials. These materials need to be sourced from different places, sent to production facilities and assembled. Once the car is dismissed, the components need to be taken care of by either reusing, recycling…

Neanderthals were able to make fire on a large scale with the aid of pyrite and hand-axes. This means they could decide when and where they wanted fire and were not dependent on natural fire, as was thought earlier. Archaeologist Andrew Sorensen has discovered the first material evidence for this. Publication…

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The publication Making Matters - A Vocabulary for Collective Arts marks the end of the NWO project 'Bridging art, design and technology through Critical Making', led by Janneke Wesseling and Florian Cramer. The book contains the outcomes of this project.

The Business & Liability Research Network (BLRN) – a partnership between the Company Law department and the Business Studies department of the Leiden Law School – presents the call for proposals for a new book project on the topic of Corporate and Organizational Decision-Making. Submissions are welcomed…

At the conference Surrealism and Scotland on 23 and 24 March, Janice McNab will share the paper ‘Surrealism and the making of Mother’.

Crucial information about research, funding or how university rankings are created is often not freely accessible. The Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information calls for such information to be made open. Professor Ludo Waltman is one of its initiators. What needs to change?

The three-day conference will be held at the Ministry of Antiquities in Cairo from the 29th of September until the 1st of October 2019 with the title: The Walking Dead II: The Making of a Cultural Geography. It is organized by the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities (RMO) and Leiden University.

In the world of Ancient Greece the interpretation of supernatural signs was a versatile tool to facilitate decision-making. This is the central hypothesis of the PhD dissertation of historian Kim Beerden. Defence on 14 February.

The importance of digitalization has become even more evident during the Corona crisis. Society and the Dutch economy are therefore rapidly digitizing. This calls for a good balance between seizing opportunities and reducing risks.

From 14 to 15 September 2023, Simona Demkova, AI researcher at the Europa Institute, participated in the INDIGO Project Final Conference, where she provided valuable perspectives on the implications of AI for European public law.