Imagine we could do what green plants can do: photosynthesis. Then we could satisfy our enormous energy needs with deep-green hydrogen and climate-neutral biodiesel. Scientists have been working on this for decades. Chemist Chengyu Liu will receive his doctorate on 8 June for yet another step that brings…

Een internationaal consortium onder leiding van Olaf van Vliet heeft een Horizon Europe subsidie van 3,4 miljoen euro gewonnen. In het onderzoek staat centraal hoe wereldwijde sociale veranderingen zoals migratie, digitalisering en de klimaattransitie de arbeidsmarkt beïnvloeden en wat daar de gevolgen…

Leiden physicists are helping Wageningen plant researchers to study unpredictable plant embryos. For this, they are using a novel two-photon fluorescence microscope, aided by a 30 thousand euro ZonMW grant.

30 Years of Pale Blue Dot - 14 February 2020, Kaiserzaal, Old Observatory - The Pale Blue Dot Symposium is an event to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the iconic picture showing the Earth as a tiny speck in the vastness of space and to discuss its impact on humankind. At the end of the symposium,…

In some university restaurants and cafés, you can already order them and, come January, you can enjoy them everywhere: the Pure products. Sustainable, healthy and/or vegetarian. The beautiful lime green, also the colour of the plates and bowls, is the vibrant symbol of these products. And Pure is even…

A large new campus square on the Leiden Bio Science Park will be used for a range of activities for students, staff and Leiden residents, a knowledge festival, shows and sporting activities, for instance.

The present market regulations make it extremely risky to invest in green energy, and this is impeding the fight against climate change. This is what Oscar Kraan writes in his dissertation. PhD defence on 25 April.

An Institute of Environmental Sciences, ambitious goals for energy, water and CO2 emissions. Leiden University plans to take the lead on sustainability - in research, teaching and raising awareness.

The effects of sustainability projects on poorer, marginalised people should be considered at a much earlier stage. This is the opinion of Marja Spierenburg, Professor of Anthropology of Sustainable Development and Livelihood, who will give her inaugural lecture on 25 February.

The Sustainability Prize of the Leiden University Green Office and the Local Chamber of Associations has been won this year by student association Catena. In the shadow of the corona pandemic, Catena worked exceptionally hard to improve sustainability.

More than 30 members of Programme Committees, Faculty Councils and the University Council met online on 27 November with a mission: how can university co-participation work towards a more sustainable university in terms of education, research, and operations? The Leiden University Green Office and the…

For the first time, Leiden University has made it to the top 10 of the UI Green Metric, a global sustainability ranking for universities. Of the 780 participating universities, Leiden has taken seventh place.

The Leiden University Green Office (LUGO) organised a symposium about sustainable consumption on 2 May. Various speakers told a packed room about sustainable alternatives for consumer products. View the photos.

Front-of-pack nutrition labelling, origin labelling, regulation of voluntary green claims made by food business operators: the EU is currently looking into various reforms of the legal framework for food information to consumers. The goal: healthier and more sustainable diets.

Leiden University is demolishing a number of old laboratories of the Faculty of Science in a sustainable way. The Dutch Green Building Council, an organisation that seeks to ensure sustainable construction and demolition, awarded this approach four stars.

Leiden University will install over 30 tap water stations in the autumn of 2017 at the various University buildings. The first is already in use.

As most of you are well aware of, Climate Change has been an ongoing and pressing topic, and therefore deserves our close attention. What and how exactly happens during Climate Change? What are the effects of it? AND possibly most importantly, what can WE as students do about it?

In a newly published book chapter, Transparency and information: Factors needed to promote ethical investments, ELS lab member Sarah Vandenbroucke discusses why information and transparency are needed to promote ethical investments.

Biology PhD student at Leiden University Kevin Groen and his identical twin brother Marvin Groen (a biology student as well) will be on Dutch Television from Tuesday 5 September in the programme called Vroege Vogels every week (NPO 2, 19:20).

How can we organise society so as to keep our planet habitable for us and for all other life forms around us? To answer this question, Leiden researchers collaborate across disciplines, from biology to data science, and from environmental economy to archaeology.

Crises like climate change and loss of biodiversity threaten our planet. That’s why sustainability is an important topic in research and education across Leiden University. On this website you read how scientists from many disciplines work together in researching sustainability.

On 8 April 2022, researchers of the seed grant project on 'How to Finance Climate Change Policies' presented their work to the Leiden Political Economy Group (L-PEG) and GTGC's Economy and Ecology thematic areas during a research seminar. The title of the presentation was 'How to Finance Green Investments?…

‘Over the last few years we have focused much more on our environmental policy and have got better at telling the world what we do,’ says Jan van der Boon, Director of Administration at the Leiden University Administration and Central Services Department. This is how he explains Leiden’s impressive…

Are you writing your thesis this semester? Choose a sustainable topic! To help you get started, Leiden University Green Office has made a guideline to write your thesis about a sustainable topic. Find examples, a step-by-step plan to follow and our reasoning behind this project! Or, did you recently…

Grass, nettles, dandelions: we should banish them from our gardens, right? Wrong! Weeds can help cool, fertilise and increase biodiversity in your garden. In this episode of The University of the Netherlands, biologist Nienke Beets lists the advantages of more green in our villages and towns.

The plane trees from the forecourt of Cluster North have been moved to the Herta Mohr building (Cluster South). The trees could not remain in their original location because of the forthcoming renovation of Cluster North. They have been moved already in advance of the flowering season. In June, the…

Students for Palestine – a group of students from Leiden and The Hague – are holding a panel discussion in the Leiden University in The Hague Wijnhaven building on Tuesday 24 May entitled ‘Silencing Palestine’.

A revolutionary supercomputer with energy-efficient parts that are available in the shops. Professor of Computational Astrophysics Simon Portegies Zwart has been awarded an NWO Medium Grant to build this processing giant, which will have the power of a supercomputer but requires only one percent of…

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…

Everyone can contribute to a better climate. One thing you can do is to turn the heating down in your room and wear a warmer sweater! Leiden University is taking part in the Warm Sweater Day again this year. On 2 February the heating will be turned down to 16 degrees in as many University buildings…

The jade vine (Strongylodon macrobotrys) is flowering at the Hortus botanicus in Leiden. The plant started producing multiple flower clusters three weeks ago and the first ones are now in full bloom.

The National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden features a small photo exhibition on Mark Driessen's fieldwork research project in Southern Jordan. In this small exhibition you will see a selection of nine photos, made in Udhruh. This ancient Jordanian settlement lies fifteen kilometres east of Petra,…

Have you had a busy week at work? If so, it’s better to take a walk in a natural environment than to go shopping in the city.

Leiden University has climbed to 24th place in the UI Green Metric, an international sustainability ranking for universities. This puts Leiden University among the top 6% of high-scoring universities worldwide. 719 universities from 81 countries took place in the ranking.

On 16 May 2024, EU Talks?!, a student-based initiative, was delighted to organise its first session with the following theme: ‘Rule of Law in the EU: Beyond Poland and Hungary'.

10 October is the Day of Sustainability. What is the current status of sustainability at Leiden University? Things are moving ahead. Professor of Environmental Biology and Dean of the Faculty of Science, Geert de Snoo, outlines a new prospect: biodiversity.

Master's student Thalia Luden receives an NWO grant for her research proposal about a gene that brings flowering plants back into a growth phase. Companies in floriculture and vegetable seed breeding also contribute to the research.

Compare human social behaviour at a country level and you will find differences. Japan has the highest score whereas the Netherlands is just above average. This is what psychologist Niels van Doesem discovered in research with an international team of 64 colleagues in 31 industrialised countries. Their…

In the Leiden Municipality Challenge, 25 students investigated how Leiden could become more sustainable. In doing so, they enlisted the help of the city's citizens. 'When citizens themselves participate in the research process, they have a better understanding of how science works.'

Researchers from the Leiden Institute of Chemistry show proof of principle that live-cell structural changes and metabolic processes can be followed in real time with NMR spectroscopy. They performed their study on photosynthetic green algae that are metabolically flexible and can sustain energy generation…

Do you want to show that sustainability and business can work well together? And are you ready for a challenge? If so, you can sign up for the Sustainable Business Battle, a six-week business case challenge in which teams of students help companies find innovative and sustainable solutions.

Are you passionate about sustainability? Do you see opportunities to make Leiden University more sustainable? Are you able to inspire, engage and empower students and staff to cooperate? This is your chance to contribute!

Last week we organized an event together with the Green Office from the Bucerius Law School. We wondered: how realistic is UBI as an option to create a more sustainable society? More than 100 people signed-up to join us to find an answer to this question.

This blogpost reports on one of these conversations, which Alessandro Pisano, political science student at the University of Turin, and I had with regards to the transforming neighbourhood of Mirafiori Sud.

A partnership with the Leiden Leadership Programme: what does it bring you? Two partner organisations in the field of sustainability, Arcadis and Bioto, share their experiences: “It's great to be surprised by new insights.”

On 23 September, the Leiden alderman for the Management of Public Space was presented with a Ginkgo Biloba in the Blekerspark. This special 'Peace Tree' was grown from a seed from a tree that survived the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima. The Peace Tree is being temporarily housed in Leiden's Hortus…

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.

Students at Leiden University believe that their study programmes should pay more attention to sustainability. This is evident from a representative survey of more than 550 students, conducted by Leiden University Green Office .

As of 1 October Rob van Nieuwpoort is the new professor of Efficient Computing and eScience at the Leiden Institute of Advanced Computer Science (LIACS). Van Nieuwpoort brings with him a wealth of expertise: he is an expert in eScience, high performace computing and advanced algorithms.