Increasing the efficiency of gene targeting (GT) as a genome editing tool in plants has been an important goal in plant biotechnology.

The ability to create objects and structures with our hands has been essential to human development. This ability is something modern society is at risk of losing. Leiden archaeologists gather knowledge about ancient processes of ‘making and creating’ over the centuries, knowledge that helps our current…

We are doing all we can to save energy at the university. Find out how you as a member of staff or student can do about energy and help reduce CO2 emissions.

In science, it is of vital importance that multiple studies corroborate the same result. Researchers therefore need to know all the details of previous experiments in order to implement the procedures as exactly as possible. However, this is becoming a major problem in neuroscience, as animal studies…

Müller, Braun & Fraussen examine the conditions under which commissioners appear in the news and which communication strategies they pursue.

This book argues that Armenians around the world – in the face of the Genocide, and despite the absence of an independent nation-state after World War I – developed dynamic socio-political, cultural, ideological and ecclesiastical centres. And it focuses on one such centre, Beirut, in the postcolonial…

Evidence-informed policy-making is crucial for good governance. Yet, despite the abundance of evidence from research and evaluation available to decision-makers, we know little about the actual influence of evidence on government policies. The ‘Power of Evidence’ (PoE) research programme, directed by…

What political factors affect the speed or duration of EU legislative decision-making?

This thesis focuses on the question: What is the content of mentor teachers’ practical knowledge of adaptive response to their mentee teachers’ learning?

This thesis examines the complexity of legislative decisions within the EU, with a specific focus on the Council of the EU.

This book offers readers an alternative history of the origins of the discipline of International Relations.

In this top-rated course, you will learn how the European Union prepares and decides on policy, and how policy is transferred to member states and implemented by various authorities. It discusses the challenges of the European multi-level governance structure and the main causes of policy failure or…

Studies of perceptual decision-making typically present the same stimulus repeatedly over the course of an experimental session but ignore the order of these observations, assuming unrealistic stability of decision strategies over trials. However, even ‘stable,’ ‘steady-state,’ or ‘expert’ decision-making…

The starting point for this research project is the notion that the human brain is susceptible to all kinds of fallacies and biases that affect our perceptions and influence our reasoning outside of our conscious awareness. Indeed, most people think they are merely observing facts and that they process…

Cookware handles, electrical plugs, brake pads. Unlike other plastics, these ‘thermosets’ cannot simply be melted down and reshaped, making them difficult to recycle. Chemist Roxanne Kieltyka and her team are now exploring a way to make these materials recyclable, potentially transforming the way we…

PhD defence

This book analyses the emergence of modern parties in nineteenth-century Europe and explores their connection with the slowly developing institution of democracy.

Chemical reactions go hand-in-hand with an energy exchange with the environment in which they take place. Surfaces offer a variety of energy dissipation channels, constituted by the nuclear and electronic degrees of freedom of the atoms at the interface. Aiming at an improved future harvesting of energy,…

As a research project between four Jean Monnet Chairs - two located in Europe, one in Canada and one in the U.S. -- the project DEUBAL has been approved in 2010 for co-financing by the European Commission. DEUBAL aims to study changes in European decision-making due to the Lisbon Treaty, by a combination…

How do processes of coalition-formation influence patterns of decision-making in the European Union?

Associate Professor of Physical Geography Paul Hudson at Leiden University College was interviewed by TIME Magazine on the Mississippi floods that have been harassing the United States this year.

The monthly ILS Lunch Seminars present the perfect opportunity to unite the different institutes situated within Leiden Law School and are steadily developing into somewhat of a tradition. On Thursday 14 June, the last edition of the ILS Lunch Seminars of this academic year takes place. This seminar…

“To change the world, you do not need everybody. You only need one. So, will you be the one? That’s the question.” Saturday December 3rd, Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus gave a special lecture at the Anna van Buerenplein campus of LUC The Hague. (Text: Jakob Semb Aasmundsen; Photography: Paul…

Think tanks have proliferated in most Western democracies over the past three decades and are often considered to be increasingly important actors in public policy. Still, their precise contribution to public policy remains contested.

The project’s overall goal is to improve Indonesia’s environmental legal framework and its implementation by strengthening the regulatory capacity of the government, and by enhancing the capacity of CSOs and scholars to hold the government accountable for its regulatory performance.

This book explores the relationship between the production of new urban spaces and illiberal community-making in contemporary India. It is based on an ethnographic study in Noida, a city at the eastern fringe of the state of Uttar Pradesh, bordering national capital Delhi.

On the 24th of June, Martijn Wackers successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Martijn on this achievement!

How do cognitive, motivational, and affective processes interact to select actions?

In the overview below you can find the LUC Newsletters that were send out during block 3 and spring break in semester 2 of academic year 2019 - 2020.

The complexities of modernization in Brazil and Graciliano Ramos significance for our understanding of Brazil today.

igraph development focused on improving the most-used interfaces, which are Python, R, and Mathematica. Additionally, the developers aim to make the library and the interfaces easier to maintain, focusing on long-term sustainability. This ensures that igraph continues to be a useful tool for network…

Searching for ways to delay the need for a transplant and trying to build kidneys to order.

Book talk

On 2 April, the final of the Legal Tech Challenge 2026 took place in the Academy Building of Leiden University. During the final, teams of students pitched their technological solutions to societal challenges.

Investigating the making of knowledge in anthropology and natural history in colonial and postcolonial Indonesia.

Exploring the application of data-driven AI optimizations, this work leverages past software performance to reduce the carbon footprint and energy consumption of powerful computing applications.

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.