The Department of Medical Microbiology of Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) will investigate the efficacy of a new experimental vaccine from the pharmaceutical company Jansen against the coronavirus. The research is being conducted in collaboration with the The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies…

Two Leiden University research consortia have received funding from the High Tech Systems and Materials programme (HTSM).

The second quantum revolution is in full swing, bringing all kinds of new technologies to within reach, and offering many opportunities as well as challenges. Leiden and Delft decided to join forces.

On Friday 24th March, Prof. Amanda Perry-Kessaris (Kent Law School) ); who was here for the lecture ‘Exploring the economic life of law with sociological imagination, visual methods and experimental attitude’, Leiden Socio-Legal Lecture Series, as a part of ILS 2.0, gave a short workshop on data visualisation…

Students from the Coornhert Lyceum from Haarlem visited the Babylab Leiden together with their teacher Roos Bannenberg. The 5-VWO students follow modules of 10 weeks for science orientation and they had difficulty imagining what research with babies looks like. The Babylab Leiden gave a solution.

On 16 January student Lisa Bruil from the Institute of Biology Leiden was awarded the annual prize from the Stichting Prof. dr. K. Bakker-Fonds for her outstanding results as BSc-student.

Professor Claartje Levelt, together with Paula Fikkert (Radboud University), has received an NWO Open Competition grant for research into the development of word production in toddlers.

Electrons that spin synchronously around their axis, turn out to stay superconducting across large distances within magnetic chromium dioxide. Electric current from these electrons can flip small magnets, and its superconducting version could form the basis for a hard drive without energy loss. Publication…

Leiden University researchers Gisela Hirschmann (Political Science) and Niels van Doesum (Psychology) have been awarded a LUF/Gratama grant for their research on the effects of musical peacebuilding initiatives. When ‘enemies’ make music together, does that change the image they have of one another?…

Five promising researchers at Leiden's Faculty of Science have received a Veni award from NWO. They can use the award - of up to 250,000 euros - to carry out research over a three-year period. Of the total of seventeen Leiden Venis, four went to Leiden Observatory and one to Institute for Biology Le…

This weeks marks the 10th anniversary of the European Research Council. For the past decade, the council has contributed to many scientific projects all over Europe, including Leiden University. It has funded almost 7,000 researchers, leading to just short of 100,000 scientific articles. A total of…

Nematic liquid crystals form the key ingredients of most tv screens. The active version of these complex fluids forms a useful model for physicists to research the responses of active matter—like bacteria or traffic flows—to mechanical and geometrical cues. An international research team publishes their…

Where exactly on the surface of a catalyst do the chemical reactions occur? Until now, it has always been a challenge to identify the exact locations of these ‘active sites’. In a new article in Nature, Leiden chemists helped their international colleagues reveal new insights into this issue. Their…

The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research has awarded dr. Geeske Langejans a Veni grant for the research project What's in a plant? Tracking early human behaviour through plant processing and exploitation.

Wouter Halfwerk and colleagues from Panama and the US published a paper on multisensory communication in Science. The authors provide compelling data on the consequences of multisensory perception on signal evolution in tropical frogs.

On April 4 a new composition and a new instrument by researcher Aart Strootman will see the light of day at the 55th edition of Spring Festival 2022, presented by the Royal Conservatoire’s Composition department.

Philosophical pragmatism has found more and more applications. But thus far it has not been applied to political crisis management. Political scientist Martin Bartenberger linked these two together and discovered that pragmatism, or the lack thereof, can help to explain how governments and public agencies…

Depression and anxiety disorders among youth are causing major problems worldwide. The mechanisms involved are still unknown, however. Moji Aghajani – Assistant Professor at the Institute of Education and Child Studies - aims to provide new insights with his research

On December 4th, Flor Rhebergen received the 2015 Unilever Research prize for his study achievements at the IBL for his outstanding work in the field of Evolutionary Biology. Flor Rhebergen received the “Ovum” sculpture and was awarded €2.500.

Amino acids are the building blocks for life on earth. They may originate in space and reach the Earth via comets and meteorites. Daniël Paardekooper examined part of this hypothesis. PhD defence on 5 July.

Using musical cues to learn a physical task significantly develops an important part of the brain, according to a new study co-authored by Leiden psychologist Rebecca Schaefer. The results are published in the journal Brain & Cognition.

Physicists have manipulated light with large artificial atoms, so-called quantum dots. Before, this has only been done so well with actual atoms. It is an important step towards light-based quantum technology. Publication on August 30th in Nature Communications.

Researchers from Leiden have developed a promising TB vaccine that users can self-administer via a special patch. This could be beneficial for countries with limited health services, says PhD candidate Malene Neustrup.

The small quantum world and our world of perception obey different laws of nature. Leiden physicists search for the border between both worlds. In an article published soon in Physical Review Letters they set an upper limit.

With cancer, the immune system is a double-edged sword: it can attack tumour cells, but can also help them grow and spread. It is a question of harnessing it. This is what Professor Karin de Visser argued in her inaugural lecture on 15 November 2019.

Boyd Leupen has won the Institute of Political Science MSc Thesis Prize 2015. With 'Refuting asymmetrical Kantianism: On the moral standing of animals', Leupen completed his Political Science master studies and contributed an excellent piece of scholarly work. According to the jury, his thesis stands…

In the beginning of December 2016 PhD candidate Catarina Guzzo Falci was awarded a scholarship for a collections study by Musée du quai Branly. The Musée du quai Branly has implemented this scholarship programme to document its collections.

Daniel Rozen (45), at the IBL since September 2012, uses bacteria in laboratory tests on experimental evolution to study the ecology and genetics of adaptation. His research has applied importance, as it reveals how bacteria may be induced to produce new antibiotics. Last January, Rozen received the…

The image of the Leiden microboat traveled all over the world, from the BBC up to Arab shipping blogs. But Daniela Kraft's research group has quite a few more different 3D printed microswimmers up their sleeves. Kraft receives a Vidi research grant for research into these variously shaped active par…

Wouter Halfwerk (IBL) received a Veni grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research for his research project on the influence of man-made noise on foraging birds.

Daniela Kraft will be awarded the NWO Athena Prize 2019 in a ceremony at the CHAINS Chemistry Conference on 10 December. The prize recognizes excellent female chemists who carry out outstanding scientific research and act as role models for their fellow researchers. Kraft will receive the Athena Prize…

De Faculteit Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA) heeft een facultair team opgesteld om invulling te geven aan Academia in Motion (AiM).

Performance, Subjectivity and Experimentation in Artistic Research: An Interdisciplinary Seminar

Electric noise can be useful for scientists but inconvenient for chip manufacturers. They do share a wish to predict the amount of noise. PhD student Sumit Tewari overturns a century-old law relating noise to current. He defends his thesis on March 27th.

A catalyst: normally a substance that speeds up a chemical reaction, without adding molecules to this reaction. Scientists from the group of Prof. Marc Koper of Leiden University and Prof. Yang Shao-Horn of MIT now discovered that in specific reactions that need oxygen, catalysts called metal oxides…

Despite a lack of specific legislation on this issue, Dutch Minister of Justice and Security Dilan Yeşilgöz is allowing the national police force to experiment with facial recognition technology.

Chris Jacobs, former PhD-student of the IBL, received the national “Dissertation Award” for best PhD thesis of the year on insects. The award was handed out last Friday, the 18th of December, by Professor Matty Berg, president of the Dutch Entomological Society.

The European ARTificial Intelligence Lab is now offering artists working with Artificial Intelligence the chance for a residency at the Leiden Observatory and the Ars Electronica Futurelab. Entries are possible until 22 July 2020

Nine Archaeology students have built a reconstruction of an early medieval house in Vlaardingen. The house, built according to a houseplan discovered during excavations at Rotta, has already played an important role as the backdrop of the re-enactment of the battle of Vlaardingen of 1018.

The human brain stores not only individual words, but also all kinds of abstract information about these words. Research by Leiden linguists has shown that speakers have ready access to this information.

On 3 February the Institute of Security and Global Affairs in The Hague hosted an experimental workshop in collaboration with the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA).

At the LION/Sterrewacht new year’s reception, Scientific Director of Casimir Tjerk Oosterkamp handed out the 2017 Hendrik Casimir Prize to physics students Nashwan Sabti (Leiden) and Nikolas Kavadias (Delft). The Casimir Research School yearly awards the prize to the best MSc students in (Applied) Physics…

The Leiden University Fund (LUF) awards grants to research and educational project in various academic fields once a year. This year, Andrei Poama, Jochem Jansen, Valérie Pattyn and Min Cho of the Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs were four of the recipients of such a grant.

If computers work on superconducting current, they won’t consume any energy. Leiden physicists have now gained control over a new type of superconducting memory elements. Publication in Nature Communications.

NWO has assigned Physics Vrije Programma grants to five collaborations of physicists. Leiden University is involved in three of them.

Subtle changes in eye appearance can influence how people perceive others and affect their generosity. Articles from PsyPost and The Washington Post highlighted two experimental studies in which psychology researchers from Leiden University, including Mariska Kret, explored this phenomenon.

There have been indications for decades that there is a link between increased iron levels in the brain and Alzheimer’s disease. Leiden physicists find this connection as well, thereby now making a distinction between different forms of iron. They identify specific iron forms that increase in Alzheimer’s…

In close cooperation with various partners, Leiden’s Administrative and Constitutional Law Department is seeking to expand its presence in The Hague - the International City of Peace and Justice.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia. This makes fundamental research on the precise cause of the illness of vital importance. One of the possible suspects is a certain protein filled with iron. Leiden physicist Lucia Bossoni (LION/LUMC) has now developed a new way of investigating…

On February 3rd, the Institute of Security and Global Affairs in The Hague hosted an experimental workshop in collaboration with the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA). Students in the MSc International Relations and Diplomacy embraced the workshop as a good supplement to coursework and inspiration…