On Friday 10 July the Towards Biosolar Cells research programme was granted a budget of 25 million euros by the Dutch Government. The Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality recommended the programme because it will contribute to green energy, improve food supplies and a create a more sustainable…

Almost 100 billion tons of CO₂ could be pulled out of the atmosphere by the end of the century. That is, if high-income countries switch to a plant-based diet. The double carbon profit of returning farmland to its natural state would equal about 14 years’ worth of agricultural emissions, researchers…

In 2005, the LEAD Programme organised and coordinated the International Exhibition on ‘Jamu: Medicinal Plants for Health and Conservation in Indonesia’ in collaboration with Universitas Padjadjaran (UNPAD) in Bandung, Indonesia, the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania (MAICH) in Chania, Crete,…

After decades of intensive farming, the peatland area is under pressure. Researchers, farmers and policymakers work together in the Polderlab to identify future-proof types of agriculture. ‘It’s unbelievable how quickly the system bounces back without intensive fertilisation.’

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.

PhD student Thierry Rohmer received the Ernst Award 2009 of the Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker (GDCh) for his publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the USA on the structure-function relation of the photoreceptor phytochrome. The prize was presented at the Annual Discussion…

Professors Jos Raaijmakers (NIOO) and Gilles Van Wezel (IBL) received an STW Perspectief- grant of €3 million from the Dutch Technology Foundation and several supporting companies.

Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) is a promising method for removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and simultaneously generating energy. Yet this method is controversial, as it may require a great deal of land and water. Researchers at Leiden University have now proposed a…

Promotors: Prof.dr. P.G.L. Klinkhamer, Prof.dr. P.M. Brakefield

This thesis aims to investigate the effect of tripartite interaction between microbial inoculants, the plant, and herbivore insects on the rhizosphere microbiome and volatilome. We investigated the rhizosphere microbiome and volatilome of tomato plants exposed to insect herbivory and/or inoculated with…

Maurijn van der Zee searches for insecticides that protect crops without harming wildlife or leaving residues in our food. His GREENSHIELD project received funding from the NWO Open Technology Programme.

Together with a large international team of scientists, researchers Peter van Bodegom and Nadia Soudzilovskaia of the Leiden Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) have created maps of variability in plant trait distribution across the globe. The new maps have been published in Proceedings of the…

Globally and regionally, biodiversity is declining and there are shifts in species’ occurrences and functional traits.

Promotor: H.J.M. de Groot, Co-Promotor: A. Alia

Which genes are involved in woodiness and associated traits such as drought tolerance, flowering time, stem elongation, life span, and plant herbivory, and how do these gene regulatory pathways overlap?

How do plant defense genes get activated?

2,240 plant extracts from 1,299 different plant species of Dutch origin. That’s the collection of the Dutch Extract Library, which has recently been transferred to the Institute of Biology Leiden. To plant biologist and contact person for this library Pingtao Ding this is a true treasury. ‘To bring…

Researchers from the Plant Ecology and Phytochemistry group at the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL) received an STW (Stichting Technologische Wetenschappen) grant for applied studies in plant herbivore resistance with potential for a novel resistance test.

Why do plants produces always produced so many slightly differing metabolites within a particular chemical class?

Dr. Kirsten Leiss and Prof. Peter Klinkhamer received 900.000 euro’s from “Stichting Toegepaste Wetenschappen (STW)” and the company “Rijk Zwaan” to develop plants that are resistant to thrips, a major agricultural pest all over the world.

Mycoheterotrophy is a particular mode of life in which plants obtain carbohydrates from their associated fungal partners, instead of by using photosynthesis.

Plants and their pollinators form complex interaction networks. Within these networks, species differ widely in the number of species they interact with.

Balsaminaceae is a diverse plant family characterized by a huge floral morphological diversity.

Plant architecture has distinct forms in different plant species, but also within a species the finalarchitecture of a plant is determined by its gradual development and changes therein induced by environmental conditions during the plant’s life cycle.

PhD at Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens - France

Leiden researcher Dr Ben Zonneveld has determined the size of the genome - the amount of DNA per nucleus - of wild tulips. His conclusion is that there are more than 87 wild species. Various possibly new species have been discovered.

The IBL has four Divisions: Animal Sciences, Plant Sciences, Microbial Sciences and Science Communication and Society.

Identifying natural plant-associated bacteria that provide targeted inhibition of pathogens through the production of antimicrobial peptides.

Promotor: Prof.dr. R. Verpoorte, , Co-Promotor: Young Hae Choi

The plant hormone auxin plays a central role in the growth and development of plants. Auxin acts in a concentration dependent manner and polar cell-to-cell transport of this hormone determines its distribution in the tissues of plants. This polar auxin transport is mediated by several families of auxin…

Surveying Indigenous Peoples’ culinary practices prior to the advent of European invasions in the Greater Caribbean

PBDL favors multidisciplinary research. Depending on the problems under investigation, PBDL establishes collaborations between experts from for example molecular genetics, molecular and electro cell physiology, biochemistry, organic chemistry, analytical mathematics, mathematical statistics and computational…

Information about the products of the extract library.

Sip2021 is sponsored by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) and the Graduate School Experimental Plant Sciences (EPS).

Dr. at Max Planck Institute for chemical Ecology, Jena - Germany

On this page the programme and sessions can be found. The programme will be updated regularly.