The organisations and people who implement government policy face many different types of change. Academics from Leiden University research how they deal with these and advise them on how best to meet the needs and wishes of society.

Beyond the immediately visible plenum, parliaments are highly complex institutions. They work through various venues in which decisions are prepared or even taken. The two main institutions in this regard are parliamentary party groups, which comprise legislators who are elected under the same party…

We are very excited to announce our Sustainability Series for 2023-2024. Each month an interactive workshop will be organised that discusses a specific theme of sustainability. Interested about sustainability? Do not hesitate to sign up to our events !

Intelligent machines are going to make ethical decisions too. Should a self-driving car be allowed to slam into pedestrians to save its passengers from a head-on collision? Should a negotiation app be able to detect stress in your opponent’s voice? And who makes these decisions: the user, the system’s…

From 2 to 5 September 2015, Leiden served as the stage for one of the world’s largest linguistics conferences: the Societas Linguistica Europaea (SLE) 2015 Annual Meeting. Marianne Mithun, a professor at University of California, Santa Barbara and outgoing president of the SLE, is not surprised that…

Discussing or giving a lecture about a war situation is no easy task. Nonetheless – or maybe for this very reason – students or lecturers do feel the need to have such a discussion during classes. We share here a number of tips and sources to steer the conversation or lecture in the right direction.

The objective of the Social and Organisational specialisation is to equip students with advanced training in research methods and professional skills that prepare them both for a career involving psychological research as well as for the application of scientific knowledge and methods in various professional…

In the South and Southeast Asian Studies programme you will gain a strong foundation in the academic, language and critical thinking skills essential to understanding the history, culture and modern context of this dynamic and increasingly important region.

The master's specialisation Methodology and Statistics in Psychology includes courses, a thesis and an internship. Teaching takes place in the form of seminars and small-group lectures and practicals, and is assessed primarily by written coursework and reports of empirical projects carried out individually…

Is it possible to formulate a new conceptual foundation for attributing an evaluative role to historiography of science, without relinquishing the historiographic sensitivity of recent work in the discipline?

CompaRe aims to conduct and stimulate research on comparative regional integration in Europa, Asia, Africa and Latin-America. To this end, CompaRe organizes conferences and workshops, and CompaRe members contribute to conferences, research papers, publications and reports on comparative regional…

Making predictions about emotional problems or the effects of air pollution: Marjolein Fokkema’s algorithms are getting better at this all the time. She is making her algorithms increasingly flexible, so they can predict not just characteristics at one particular moment, but also how skills, for example,…

The artefacts that still remain from the traditional culture of the indigenous Yukon, Canada, are spread over dozens of museums throughout the world. Yukon Indian Ukjese van Kampen carried out research to bring this culture to light. This is the subject of his dissertation entitled ‘The history of Yukon…

How have human-environmental entanglements changed in the Gulf of San Miguel, Darien, Panama, from the first traces human practices through to the present?

- Which metabolites could be components of NADES? - How can we prove the presence of NADES in nature? - What are the roles of NADES in nature? - How to apply NADES in life sciences?

Postdocs, or early career researchers, play a crucial role at Leiden University. They make a major contribution to our research. In 2019, Leiden University employed around 400 postdocs across our faculties in Leiden and The Hague, LUMC not included.

The Aesernia Colonial Landscape project investigates ancient settlement patterns and dynamics around modern Isernia in Molise (Italy), the Latin colony of Aesernia (founded 263 BC). It consists of intensive systematic field survey in the territory of the colony, combined with remote sensing and geoprospection…

The research aims at achieving a European consensus on a harmonized LCA approach/framework to be applied in E-mobility sector. The research will focus on needs and gaps in current LCA practices in E-mobility and try to provide solutions for them based on the rich knowledge and experience represented…

This project aims to link robot development and policymaking to reduce the complexity in robot legal compliance in the context of COVR.

Research at the Macromolecular Biochemistry group is comprised of the following research themes:

In addition to the walk-in tours at the visitor center, we also offer private tours for groups. These tours delve deeper into the history of the building, but also offer the opportunity to learn more about astronomy in general.

At Leiden University College (LUC), engagement with international societal partners occurs through research, education, and internships, fostering mutually beneficial collaborations with NGOs, public service institutions, and international counterparts.

Leiden University social scientists have shown that customised intervention pays off. A new fundamental research-based approach in children who are in danger of going off the rails has delivered spectacular results.

You can do a degree in Artificial Intelligence at Leiden University, but its role is also increasing in other degree programmes.

Many Asian countries are in a process of democratisation. The expectation was that citizens would gradually gain more control over the functioning of their elites. Experts from Leiden have concluded that this process often fails to improve the quality of the administration. They researched the nature…

How do tax treaties have to be explained and implemented, and what role does the supranational regulatory process play in this? Which objectives are meant to be used in establishing tax regulations and to what extent are such legislative practices undertaken in a goal-oriented manner?.

In our European and International Business Law Advanced Master programme, you learn to decipher the hierarchy of European & international business law

What are the biological and biophysical mechanisms that control chemokine gradient sensing and migration of immune, endothelial, and tumour cells in tumour development?

Social science research helps us understand human behaviour and social structures. These are determined by various factors, which makes the research complex and increases the likelihood of drawing the wrong conclusions. The choice of research method and analysis is therefore extremely important. It…

The Cryogenics Department has a liquid helium production unit and an automatic liquid nitrogen filling plant.

With its iconic buildings, Leiden University has a strong presence throughout the city. The university has left its mark clearly on museum collections in the city.

To what extent are, can, and should, human trafficking and human smuggling be(ing) seen as interlinked phenomena? What are the consequences of seeing the phenomena as either distinct or interlinked for the way in which migrants crossing intra-Schengen borders are treated.

ERC StG SAFE and SOUND has the ambition to connect the policy cycle with data generated in robot testing zones to support evidence-based policymaking for robot technologies.

Social safety is all about creating a supportive community

Exploiting metabolic vulnerabilities to identify anticancer compounds in zebrafish synthetic lethality screens.

Leiden and The Hague are home to many museums with large numbers of artefacts and archives. Leiden University also and the Leiden University Library also house special collections. Museums, Collections & Society stimulates research and education and raises ethical questions regarding the collections’…

Research facilities within reach of LIBC members:

A new special issue on translation and the cultural Cold War sheds light on the understudied and yet important role of translation in cultural transfer.

There are various links between Rembrandt and Leiden University

‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ said skating coach Jac Orie to Leiden data scientist Arno Knobbe. And he did. Knobbe and his colleagues now assist athletes in all kinds of ways with the help of data mining.

Since itch and pain can be very burdensome, especially when individuals suffer from (either of) these symptoms chronically, it is important to know the factors by which these sensations are influenced. It becomes more and more clear that psychological factors play an important role in the experience…

People are less willing to give up an interest when in a negotiation situation than when they can do it of their own free will, as Leiden University psychologist Eric van Dijk discovered. Knowledge of this kind can be used by policy makers, for instance, to motivate people to adopt certain desirable…

best phd theses of the faculty of science Leiden - physics, chemistry, computer science, biopharmaceutical sciences, biology, industrial ecology, environmental sciences, astronomy, mathematics

The Data Science Research Programme at Leiden University combines data science with PhD projects in a wide range of disciplines. The programme has been running for over two years, and is producing the first astonishing results. A number of PhD candidates talk about their experiences and research bel…

When to launch a next-generation product in a competitive market and how much capacity should be allocated to it

The Leiden Ancient History specialization concentrates on the study of the economies, societies and cultures of the large empires of the Graeco-Roman world, starting with the empires of Alexander the Great and his successors. The appearance of these empires led to the development of an interaction network…

Science, Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL)

Science, Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS)