A radical reduction in the amount of meat, dairy and other products sourced from animals is possible in the coming decades, as people turn to an increasing variety of alternatives. This would unlock vast amounts of land that we could use to produce energy and remove carbon from the atmosphere. Leiden…

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

Africa is seen as a potential leader in green hydrogen production for domestic consumption, export and greening industry. One key barrier to realising this potential is the mismatch of skills between those required by industry and the capability of local workforces.

CML-researcher Rene Kleijn has spoken about metals scarcity in relation to the energy transition in a new Dutch popular scientific TV show called

RAWCLIC’s main goal is to develop knowledge on the future raw materials (RMs) demand, supply and associated environmental impacts induced by the energy and digital transitions in the EU, and to support fact-based industry- and policy- decision-making enabling these transitions.

In this thesis, we consider various (electro)chemical phenomena at surfaces and nanoparticles and their underlying atomistic processes, which we studied using first-principles methods such as density functional theory.

The focus of the dissertation

Metal production is not only energy-intensive and a major source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but is also associated with other impacts affecting human health and ecosystems.

Promotor: Jelle S. Kaastra Co-promotor: Jelle de Plaa

Nowadays, it is well known that hydrogen and helium (and small traces of lithium and beryllium) were created shortly after the Big Bang, while the heavier elements are created in the cores of stars at different evolutionary stages. When these stars explode as supernovae, they expel metals synthesised…

Supply risks are not new. But the aggravation of power conflicts on the international stage coupled with global shifts towards energy transition and digitalization has triggered the next supply risk research era.

This thesis comprises the development of reproducible synthesis procedures for two-dimensional materials (composed of boron, nitrogen and carbon) on different metallic surfaces.

The glycosylation reaction is a pivotal reaction in creating new and complex oligosaccharides.

Southern Crossings: Indian activists and the Afro-Asian movement in the early Cold War era

It’s become somewhat of a tradition at Leiden University: the strategic conference at the end of June each year. About a hundred staff including the faculty boards, academic directors, directors of the expertise centres and Administration and Central Services, the representative councils and student…

The first direct detection of gravitational waves opened the possibility of mapping the Universe via this new and independent messenger.

A more efficient solar panel sounds great. But what if these new panels consume more toxic materials, or their production consumes a lot of energy? Leiden environmental scientists, together with colleagues from the Fraunhofer ISE, address this multifaceted question in a new publication in the prestigious…

This thesis contributes to studying primordial cosmology theories and their detectability in future observations.

This thesis is dedicated to the exploration of the primordial dark ages: unknown physics during the earliest stages of the Universe’s expansion that have not yet been directly probed by observations. Cosmic inflation is a burst of exponential expansion of space after the “Big Bang”.

In 2023, many of our students and staff won great prizes and secured important research grants.

A discovery made in Leiden helps not only to make natural gas from CO2 but also to store renewable energy. Research by Professor Marc Koper and PhD student Jing Shen shows how this process can be implemented in a cost-effective and controllable way. Nature Communications, 2 september 2015.

It must be there. We just cannot see it: mysterious dark matter and dark energy in the universe. Henk Hoekstra is one of the many cosmologists who would love to know what exactly these substances consist of. He has received a European research grant of 1.3 euro million to find out.

In-use stocks of products can be considered as intermediaries between human needs and the physical world.

The University is taking part in the National Warm Sweater Day on 10 February and the heating will be turned down in many buildings. Make sure you wear something warm!

The new cabinet threatens to cut nearly a billion euros from higher education. This not only endangers academic work, it is a disaster for the Netherlands itself. The proposed penalty on study extensions and other financial measures will heavily impact students and will reduce education accessibility.…

Watch and talk along with today’s science of the past during weekly Let’s Plays of popular games and vodcasts on the livestream platform Twitch.

International Coalitions for Peace in the Era of Decolonization, 1918-1970

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.

Curious about how sustainability fits into our university's strategic plan, or how much energy and water we consume? Read about it here.

With the energy transition toward a renewable energy supply and a CO2-neutral economy, electrification of the energy system is rising in importance, which leads to the challenge of long-term storage of renewable electricity.

Duurzaamheid op de campus, energietransitie, groen, circulair

Research at the BPOC/SSNMR group is comprised of the following research themes:

A soap film with chemically distinct sides: it's the latest breakthrough in the research led by chemist Sylvestre Bonnet. This unique soap film, along with an innovative device capable of continuously producing new soap films, forms a crucial piece in the puzzle for the development of artificial pho…

Theorists have recently made substantial progress in simulating reactive molecule-metal surface scattering but still face major challenges. The grand challenge is to develop an approach that enables accurate predictive calculations of reactions involving electronically excited states with potential…

The probability for dissociation of molecules on metal surfaces, which often controls the rate of industrially important catalytic processes, can depend strongly on how energy is partitioned in the incident molecule. There are many example systems where the addition of vibrational energy promotes reaction…

Before the large scale use of renewable energy sources can be implemented in our society, the storage of electrical energy needs to be tackled. Storage the energy as hydrogen via the reduction of protons is a good option.

As a virtually inexhaustible source, solar energy plays a major role in future global energy scenarios.

NimbleAI aims at solutions for ultra-energy efficient and secure neuromorphic sensing and processing at the edge.

Promotor: E. Bouwman, Co-promotor: S. Bonnet

What is Leiden University doing to make its buildings future-proof and independent of fossil energy?