The interdisciplinary research programme ‘Liveable Planet’ has created a new network, aimed at all young Leiden researchers working on sustainability issues.

The Earth-Space Symposium is set to take place on 12 and 13 November. This year’s symposium will be hosted by Utrecht University and its theme will be 'Sustainability, Governance, Futures'.

From the workload to sustainability: the University Council helps decide on important topics. In the University elections – from 9 to 13 May – you can vote for who will represent you on the Council. Three questions to the three lead candidates of the staff parties: PhDoc, Universitair Belang and Leidse…

The ninth issue of the Journal of the LUCAS Graduate Conference has been published. This time the theme is ‘Reinventing Boundaries in Times of Crisis.’

It’s already in the name. Everything you tell a confidential counsellor is confidential. In fact, a confidential counsellor is even liable if they breach their duty of secrecy and confidentiality. Considering all the recent reports in Dutch media of unacceptable behaviour, more attention than ever is…

A tenacious postdoc researcher persuaded Professor Marc Koper to research the oxygen reduction reaction. In Koper's eyes, there was little of interest there. But they promptly discovered a whole new way to improve fuel cells on hydrogen and oxygen. Their article appeared in Nature Catalysis on 07 Ju…

The bodies representing student and staff interests met at the start of the academic year for a day of training. New and familiar faces had come together to learn more about their role as council members and meet the Executive Board − and each other.

Jasper Knoester is the dean of the Faculty of Science. How is he doing, what exactly does he do and what does his day look like? In each newsletter, Jasper gives an insight into his life.

Why do violent incidents occur in prisons? And how do staff respond? Assistant Professor Esther van Ginneken will use a grant from the NWO Vidi Talent Programme to conduct research into these and other questions. She intends to make use of virtual reality.

Sander van Kasteren only noticed some small, subtle changes since he was appointed professor on 1 May. Still, he has to get used to the idea, even though he had been working towards the professorship for a few years. ‘I don't quite see myself as a professor yet.'

Since 1 September 2022, Josh Mentanko is postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for History. Below he introduces himself.

The placebo effect was completely new to her when Lingling Weng began the PhD project in Leiden. She is now a postdoc in China. 'It would be great to investigate the underlying mechanisms of placebo and nocebo effects with my current knowledge of EEG and fMRI.' PhD defence on 17 October.

Postdoc and linguist Evelyn Bosma receives the Keetje Hodshon Prize for her dissertation. For her research on the multilingualism of Frisian children, Bosma previously won the Klokhuis Science Prize and the Campus Fryslân Science Prize.

Organisation

Ever did something for the first time and got an award for it? Sabine Wenzel did. Her research about the surface of zinc oxide won her the Surface Science Young Investigator award.

‘Microscopy is by far the least understood, most inefficiently operated, and the most abused of all laboratory instruments,’ reads the quote on the office wall of microscopy unit supporters Joost Willemse en Gerda Lamers. It describes exactly why the two developed the microscopy course for starting…

Without electronics carrying out computational tasks our daily lives would look very different. Devices such as elevators, vending machines, turnstiles, washing machines and even traffic lights use a simple form of electronic computing to switch from state to state. But, what if power supply is not…

Education

The Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities (KHMW) has appointed Jos Raaijmakers, professor of Microbial Interactions and diversity, as a new scientific member.

Facility

Research

Carlotta Rigotti, post-doc researcher at eLaw - Center for Law and Digital Technologies, and Alexandre Puttick (Bern University of Applied Science) presented some research outputs of the Horizon Europe BIAS project during the European Workshop on Algorithmic Fairness '23.

Research

The Research Network of the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency (FRANET) commissioned Aleydis Nissen and Rik Raedschelders to write the 2022 report on Racism, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Belgium.

Suruchi Nepal, postdoc in the group of Coen van Hasselt at LACDR, was awarded an NWO XS project which aims to study the response to antibiotic treatment during a urinary tract infection (UTI). This knowledge will be used to determine how treatments of UTIs with antibiotics can be further improved.

Education, Human resources

Research, Social

It is the sixth year in a row that the Faculty of Archaeology is placed in the top ten of archaeological institutes worldwide. The QS World University Rankings by Subject looks at criteria like academic reputation and citation ratios.

Leiden physicist Anne Meeussen has been nominated for the title of New Scientist Science Talent. She will be up against 14 young scientists from other Dutch and Belgian universities. The polls are already open!

Divakar Budda

Research

The Economics Department at Leiden University is pleased to announce a junior workshop focusing on The Economic, Social and Political Effects of Migration, which will be held Friday 19 April 2024, at the Gravensteen in Leiden.

Sebastian Diessner, assistant professor at the Institute of Public Administration, has won a grant from the Leverhulme Fund together with three researchers from the United Kingdom. The grant, worth 350,000 euros, is for the research project: 'The Political Economy of Knowledge-Based Growth.'

Prof Dr Joke Bouwstra will receive the “ Dr Saal van Zwanenberg Ereprijs” from the “Koninklijke Hollandse Maatschappij der Wetenschappen” on November 14 in Haarlem. Joke is awarded for her innovative contributions to the field of skin delivery science and technology. She shares the price with prof…

Education, Research

Plants not only sense when they are touched, but they can also adapt to it. For example, by strengthening or defending themselves. But how do plants do this? The Green TE (Green Tissue Engineering) consortium has been granted a Gravitation grant of almost 23 million euros to investigate exactly this…

Organisation

Education, Research

Researchers at the Universities of Amsterdam (Uva) and Leiden together with the Netherlands Cancer Institute and Oncode Institute have received a €10,6 million ERC Synergy Grant to develop innovative therapeutic approaches to target glioblastoma. This is a deadly primary brain tumour for which no curing…

Claartje Levelt is professor of First Language Acquisition. She researches how babies and toddlers learn their mother tongue. Besides her work, she enjoys being involved with music.

Running, walking or horseback riding: colleagues from the Health, Medical and Neuropsychology unit are each working up a sweat this month to raise money for research on Multiple Sclerosis. How much have they collected so far?

Few researchers see potential in research on glioblastoma, an incurable brain tumour. Alexander Kros brought together colleagues who are up to the challenge. European research funder ERC recently made 10.6 million euros available, a year earlier NWO provided 3 million euros. ‘In six years, we certainly…

Dr. Els de Busser, assistant professor and researcher at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, as principal investigator of a consortia, has been awarded 1.45 million euros for a project called C-SIDe.

Assistant Professor Anna Dlabacova has been awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council. She will use this grant of around 1.5 million euros to conduct research on the Dutch vernacular ‘book of hours’.

Athletic achievements, enthusiastic supporters and a beautiful donation for charity: on Saturday 15 April, the Leiden Bio Science Park was the setting for the 5th edition of the Leiden Science Run. All this was accompanied by bright sunshine. ‘What a joy to be part of!’

Het College van Bestuur laat door een postdoc een eenjarig vooronderzoek doen naar het koloniale en slavernijverleden van de Universiteit Leiden.

It’s about much more than learning how to write a readable piece or give a presentation that doesn’t send the audience to sleep. The intensive Science Communication Summer School gives young scientists the chance to really make contact with the public.

How safe are the nanoparticles in transparent sunscreen, anti-odour socks and bacteria-resistant plasters? Although microbes are present on all organisms, the tools that estimate the safety of nanomaterials still hardly take them into account. Bregje Brinkmann explored the role of these microbes during…