Leiden University offers its students a wide range of bachelor's, master's and minors that explore sustainability or climate. Here, you find an overview of those programmes in the academic year 2020-2021.

We are cosmologists, in other words we use physics to study the Universe, how it started and evolved into the structure that we observe around us.

Research at the MCBIM group is comprised of the following research themes:

In 2021, Leiden University will develop a new Sustainability Vision 2030. This vision for the future focuses on the primary tasks of the University: integration and visibility of sustainability in our education and research.

A new universitycommittee will assess potential new collaborations with the fossil fuel industry and determine whether they comply with the Paris Agreement.

With an MSc degree in Governance of Sustainability you are well prepared for a broad array of career prospects in the field of sustainability, such as working with or for governments, at consultancies or continuing your academic research.

Are you a student, resident, civil servant or researcher? Would you like to contribute ideas and work together for a more sustainable The Hague? Then read on.

Developing safer alternatives to harmful PFAS filters and seeking new enzymes for medical applications. Two projects with Leiden researchers have been awarded funding through the Dutch Research Council's (NWO) Open Technology programme.

Meet our team

We find ourselves in an era of transition, not just towards a more computing- and data-driven society but also away from unsustainable fossil fuels as an energy source.

Sustainable energy from wind and solar is most readily available near the sea.

Sarah Giest, Assistant Professor at Leiden Univeristy, researched the topic of regulatory and market structures that affect nudge implementation by private actors, captured by the ‘budge’ idea.

Metals surfaces form a group of effective catalysts for the reaction of small molecules such as hydrogen (H2).

Tin electrodeposition applications have rapidly evolved in the past 25 years.

Promotor: K. Kuijken, Co-Promotor: H. Hoekstra

To meet the rising demand for minerals driven by the global shift to clean energy technologies, ensuring responsible and resilient supply chains is critical. Minerals like cobalt, lithium, and nickel for batteries, neodymium and zinc for wind turbines, and indium for solar panels are essential.

Inspired by natural photosynthesis, perovskite-based photoelectrochemical (PEC) systems are being developed for artificial photosynthesis, aiming to enhance solar-to-hydrogen conversion for green energy.

Following the Big Bang, structure in the Universe started collapsing under the force of gravity. This resulted in the formation of the first stars, galaxies and clusters of galaxies.

One of the most important correlation functions in physics, especially in cosmology, is the energy density, which describes how much energy is present at each point in spacetime due to matter fields. A key contribution to the energy density of the primordial universe comes from gravitational waves (GWs),…

This thesis describes a study from both a theoreticaL and an experimental point of view.

In the search for sustainable energy solutions, the idea of artificial photosynthesis has been proposed as an approach with which to use water and sunlight to produce hydrogen.

Our current research focusses on the exploration of the Universe using the neutrino. This neutral, almost massless and only weakly interacting particle can open a window to the distant Universe and also dense regions from which photons cannot escape.

To limit the effects of climate change, global average temperature since pre-industrial measurements are to be kept well below 2 °C preferably even at 1.5 °C.

Heterogeneous catalysis is one of the fundamental processes of modern life, being common in industrial refinery and hydrogen vehicles, all the way to the living cell. The dissociation of H2 on Cu(111) is an important benchmark system for studying heterogeneous catalysis, with a large and varied amount…

Solar energy harnessed by plants and algae has great potential to be converted into biofuels for future generations.

An Integrative Approach to the Hominin Record

The long-held desire - to link structure directly to function and to explain molecular mechanisms based on basic chemical or physical principles - is finally coming closer, satisfying not only our scientific curiosity but also offering new solutions to the many challenges in the field of health, energy…

“JARAK: the commoditization of an alternative biofuel crop in Indonesia” was a research program from 2010-2014 in which researchers from Indonesia and the Netherlands collaborated.

Promotor: K.E. Schalm, Co-promotor: S.S. Lee

Green hydrogen is produced via a process called water electrolysis. During electrolysis water is split into oxygen and hydrogen.

Artificial photosynthesis aims to produce fuels from solar energy using chemical processes. In semi-artificial photosynthesis, a hybrid approach is taken using both chemical and biotechnology approaches. We aim to develop hybrid systems between light-harvesting nanoparticles and redox-enzymes (oxidoreductases)…

For a long time, the painful history of colonial slavery received too little attention. People whose ancestors lived in slavery are now asking critical questions about how we should address that past. Leiden University researchers study the history of colonialism and slavery and their long-term impact…

Former PhD, Bachelor and Master students of the Van Exter Lab

Leiden University encourages all its laboratories to obtain LEAF (Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework) accreditation.

The Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences is working hard on sustainability in its buildings and in its operations. In this way, we want to do our part to contribute to the university and faculty vision and goals, and to a healthy and sustainable campus.

Several techniques are explored for going beyond the born-oppenheimer static surface model for molecule-surface reactions.

After studying Life Science and Technology, David Louwrier conducted his PhD research at LUCAS about bioart and societal debates around biotechnology. Now that his PhD thesis has been submitted, David is developing educational material about the societal aspects of the biobased economy.

Climate change is a challenge for both current and future generations. New biological resources have to be developed in order to meet the demand for energy as well as the demand for food.

The research that is united in the Liveable Planet programme, touches upon a wide range of aspects of human life. The goal is to deepen and expand the scope and to connect more researchers. The following case studies are examples of current research projects.