Human-driven environmental damage is increasingly recognised as a global crisis. Should large-scale destruction of ecosystems be considered a crime? The concept of ecocide has gained renewed attention, particularly following a proposed definition for inclusion in international criminal law, raising…

Overview of all dissertations published by PhD candidates from CML.

Governance of Sustainability is a two-year programme, worth 120 European Credit Transfer System points (ECTS).

What mechanisms shape faculty members' perspectives on their teaching role in research intensive universities?

What is the effect of light at night on plant phenology and physiology, and how does this affect plant interactions with other species?

Biodiversity in the Netherlands is having a tough time. Professor of Natural Capital Koos Biesmeijer combines research with practical advice: from the greening of industrial parks to solutions inspired by hi-tech nature. Inaugural lecture 9 March.

The Old Obervatory Leiden is one of the partners of the local learning ecosystem ‘Verwonder om de Hoek’, an educational platform from Leiden that lets school children and families wonder about the world of Nature, Science, Technology and Sustainability. On this page you will find the educational programmes…

Regenerative medicine is a new way of treatment that helps impaired cells, tissues, and organs work well again. We do this by repairing, replacing, or restoring cells, tissues, and organs after damage from illness or injury. This includes treating long-term diseases such as diabetes, kidney diseases,…

Having a chronic somatic condition can result in a variety of impairments in patients’ daily lives, including not only physical complaints such as pain, itch, and fatigue, but also problems of negative mood and impairments in social relationships. Next to disease characteristics, individual difference…

AI:Liner develops cutting-edge digital solutions for sewer asset management while ensuring responsible AI adoption through comprehensive social science research and ethical frameworks.

This collection, edited by Sophie Vériter, Monica Kaminska, Dennis Broeders and Joachim Koops, includes six papers exploring and investigating European responses to COVID-related disinformation, specifically the responses of France, Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom, Serbia, and Hungary.

The Hague is alive with nature – you just have to look

With the emergence of new methods and technologies such as improved DNA analysis and big data, archaeological research has changed radically in recent decades. The researchers from the Department of Archaeological Sciences at the Faculty of Archaeology use new scientific knowledge to answer fundamental…

The 'living lab' Vrouwe Vennepolder is situated just north of Leiden, The Netherlands, and aims to find ways to improve the agriculture of the future.

On the basis of the characteristic aspects of a picture, certain computers can tell us what the picture is showing. They can learn this in the same way that young children are able to learn to recognize images. Further improving these techniques opens the way to a whole range of new applications. Biology…

Welcome to your starting point for collaboration with the Leiden Learning & Innovation Centre. Whether you're part of Leiden University or an external organisation, this page will direct you to the right pages and contacts, ensuring a smooth beginning to our collaboration.

Leiden Early Drug Discovery & Development (LED3) is a multidisciplinary research network at Leiden University dedicated to advancing innovative approaches in early drug discovery and development. The initiative brings together 58 principal investigators from four institutes—the Institute of Biology…

The mission of the Plant Sciences cluster is to contribute to the sustainable production of high-quality crops, flowers and high-value bio-based products, and to contribute to the maintenance and restoration of biodiversity in natural ecosystems. This is realised by generating fundamental knowledge…

Curiosity is the driving force behind the research of ecologist Michiel Veldhuis. The associate professor investigates ecosystems in relation to climate change in the savannahs of Africa. More and more, he is also looking at social factors such as the influence of population growth. The KNAW rewards…

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…

With the sowing of the last experimental plot, new research platform TERRA-Dunes was officially opened on 29 June 2018. The experiment has a fundamental scientific character, but has important practical applications in nature restoration.

The Faculties of Leiden University have developed several themes for research cooperation between Leiden University and its Indonesian partners.

Biodiversity and healthy ecosystems continue to decline in Europe, which has serious consequences for human welfare. These are findings of a report that was formally approved by delegates from 127 governments during a UN plenary in Medellin, Colombia. Leiden researcher Alexander van Oudenhoven was one…

On this page the programme and sessions can be found.

Plant communities consisting of many different species are less vulnerable to attacks of plant eating animals or diseases than less diverse communities. It also helps if plant species in one community are not closely related to each other. That is the outcome of an international study published in Nature…

A new study in Nature Plants has explored the most important organising principles that control vegetation behaviour. The insights from this study can be used to improve predictions on climate change. Leiden scientists Peter van Bodegom and Nadia Soudzilovskaia participated in the study.

Knowledge institutions in the Netherlands are to work together with the pharma and biotech industries to accelerate drug discovery and development. To bridge the ‘lab-to-life’ gap, Leiden University and the LUMC have, as coordinators of Academic Pharma, submitted an application to the National Growth…

Meet the students behind Science for Sustainable Societies! In this section, you will find monthly interviews with the students who are following this programme. They will share what drives them, what they enjoy about their study, their views on our programme and what inspires them about sustainability.…

A lot of municipalities work with a points system to encourage construction projects to take biodiversity and creating green areas into account. But this way of working also benefits local neighbourhoods and residents, master's student Marije Sesink discovered. She based her study on The Hague.

Short description about 20th anniversary of CEDC, the fieldstation in Cameroon, and 20 years of cooperation between Leiden University with the University of Dschang in Cameroon.

On the 15th of October, IMARES and IBL co-organized a symposium on underwater acoustics related to research on fish and marine mammals.

The Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) invites applications for a PhD Position in the ERC Starting Grant project Pages of Prayer: The Ecosystem of Vernacular Prayer Books in the Late Medieval Low Countries, c. 1380-1550. Deadline: 30 November 2022.

PhD student Robbin Bastiaansen applies mathematics to get insight in practical problems. By comparing mathematical models with developments in existing ecosystems, he hopes to demystify the process of desertification. His research has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences…

The role of culture and diverse knowledge systems needs to be recognized when assessing nature’s contributions to people, a new policy forum paper in Science states. Alexander van Oudenhoven and thirty global experts present a new approach that will increase the effectiveness and legitimacy of policies…

Leiden researchers have compiled information collected by scientists over the past 120 years into a database of plant-fungal interactions. This important biological data is now freely available for researchers and nature conservationists. Publication in New Phytologist.

Meet the people behind Science for Sustainable Societies! As a small-scale and hands-on bachelor’s programme, our team plays a big role in shaping your learning experience. In this section, you will find interviews with the people who make this programme happen: our teachers, researchers, educational…

The coal-power energy sector is using enormous amounts of fresh water which is projected to negatively affect lives and the ecological balance of the surrounding region. This is the conclusion of the new report The Unquenchable Thirst of Energy Production, published by Greenpeace Bulgaria and Leiden…

Just like every other organism on Earth, plants’ ultimate goal is to survive and reproduce. In order to achieve this, they must make trade-offs between where and how to allocate their finite set of resources. Whether they put their resources and energy into their growth, reproduction or maintenance,…

Speech Prosody 2024 includes three exciting tutorials. Below you will find the description as well as the recording of all three of them.

This is an Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility project of Leiden Law School with University of Sarajevo in Bosnia Herzegovina.

Promotores: G.R. de Snoo, B. Sinsin, Co-Promotor: H.H. de Iongh

As environmental and ecological changes and their impact become more urgent, demand for Industrial Ecology experts is rising. More and more national and international companies, local and national governments and NGOs are interested in our alumni, who possess the interdisciplinary perspective and skill…

Urbanization brings benefits like housing and jobs but also challenges like biodiversity loss. CML's Urban research program uses science to create sustainable cities, focusing on the built environment (circular economy, urban mining) and enhancing urban nature for biodiversity and human benefits.

These podcast episodes were written for the Green Office’s Spring Podcast competition and miniseries 'Beyond the Safe Space', on the theme: the Planetary Boundaries, which took place between the months of March-May 2023.

We are all aware of the importance of a healthy lifestyle. However, at the same time we also experience many difficulties when we are trying to change our behavior to become more healthy. For example, more often than not our good intentions to exercise more or to eat fewer unhealthy snacks fail miserably…

How did local lifeways and crafting practices persist and develop in the diverse environments of the increasingly interconnected Gulf of Fonseca (AD 400-1521)?