Modern optimization algorithms offer solutions for architectural decisions like spatial, structural and energy efficiency. A young computer scientist from Leiden University co-authored a paper that won the Best Paper Award at a leading conference in Krakow during the summer.

Researchers at Leiden University have been awarded a €4 million EU grant to develop climate-neutral fuels. With this money they will expand the broad research community that focuses on green energy. If we work together, we can make the rapid progress that is needed, says Prof. Huub de Groot, Professor…

Friso Selten recently started a PhD position that is part of the SAILS program. This PhD project is a collaboration between FGGA, LIACS, and eLaw, and is supervised by Bram Klievink (FGGA), Joost Broekens (LIACS), and Francien Deschene (eLaw). In the project Friso will investigate the influence of artificial…

Over the past months regular updates have been provided on the work of the Leiden Turnaround, Rescue & Insolvency team (TRI Leiden) in creating EU Cross-Border Insolvency Court-to-Court Cooperation Principles. During the last week of January this project was finalised, resulting in 26 EU Cross-Border…

Greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere and fertilizers in the groundwater have negative consequences for our environment. With an electrochemical process they can be transformed to more valuable and useful substances like fuel and alcohol. Chemistry PhD candidate Elena Perez Gallent discovered how this…

TRI Leiden has been strongly involved, together with Nottingham Law School, in the development of the EU Cross-Border Insolvency Court-to-Court Cooperation Principles (‘EU JudgeCo Principles’). They were finalised in February 2015 and recently a book has been published. During a business rescue conference…

PhD students Alex Brandsen and Wouter Verschoof-van der Vaart are both doing a project within the university’s Data Science research programme. The are introducing terms like ‘text mining’ and ‘advanced machine learning’ into archaeology. ‘These techniques will make archaeology more efficient and ch…

As a result of production pressure, judicial powers focus more on efficiency and less on making sure they get to the truth. Professor of Criminology Jan de Keijser believes that establishing the truth in court cases is under threat. Inaugural lecture 7 November.

Endocannabinoids - the body's own marijuana - are promising departure points for drug research. Professor of Molecular Physiology Mario van der Stelt examines whether inhibiting their production can be a way to fight inflammatory brain disease and to combat obesity. Inaugural lecture 19 October.

A CT scanner to treat eye cancer, energy-efficient software for the future and a test to identify male chick eggs. Three projects by researchers from Leiden University are to receive funding from research funder NWO’s Open Technology programme, to which the business sector also contributes.

Do you recall all those drugs that were hastily proposed as potential treatments for COVID-19? In the event of a future pandemic, the goal is to offer an effective treatment more quickly and efficiently. To achieve this, a team led by Coen van Hasselt is developing a platform that can speed up the process…

The KNVI (Koninklijke Nederlandse Vereniging van Informatieprofessionals) awarded Thesis Prizes for Informatics and Information Science

Cancer is one of the main causes of death in the Netherlands. Leiden researchers are working to improve the treatment of different types of cancer in order to increase the patient’s quality of life. A better understanding of how cancer develops will make it possible to deliver personalised and precise…

If you’ve written a scientific manuscript, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with the app-switching two-step that happens when you copy your data from one program and paste them into another. That time-tested workflow does the job, but it isn’t always the most efficient process. In an article on…

KWR Watercycle Research Institute and the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) at Leiden University are collaborating in the area of social impact.

Leiden research into the properties of platinum receives a TOP subsidy of 780.000 euros from the The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research NWO. Aim of the project is a more efficient and sustainable use of the rare metal.

Over 400 registrants participated in the 5th Annual Restructuring conference, organised at the Institut für Grenzüberschreitende Restrukturierung, University of Applied Sciences in Kufstein, Austria.

A new study on the province level material footprint of China underscores the need to improve resource efficiency in the country, which would be crucial for moving to a circular economy. The research carried out by researchers from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China and Leiden University was published…

Synthetic fuel is cleaner than natural oil, but its production process needs to be more efficient. Now for the first time, physicists have directly observed the molecules produced in the chemical process. This paves the way for designing more efficient catalysts. Publication on September 19th in Nature…

Microneedles are a promising tool for the painless administration of vaccines through the skin. But, are these minuscule needles really effective? PhD student Pim Schipper of the Leiden Academic Centre for Drug Research investigated various factors of vaccination via the skin and discovered, among other…

The perfect ship is light and sleek for speed, but also needs to be strong and stable for safe sailing. These and other conflicting requirements make it difficult, even with a supercomputer, to find the ideal design. Computer scientist Roy de Winter has developed an algorithm that helps strike the perfect…

Overview of the publications of the department of Industrial Ecology (1982-2015)

Ester van der Voet received the International Society Award in Industrial Ecology. She is awarded this price for her outstanding contributions and leadership in the field of industrial ecology, and her tireless efforts to promote sustainability and resource management. The ceremony took place on the…

In the coming decades, more than 2 million social housing units in the Netherlands will receive an upgrade in insulation and heating, in order to increase energy efficiency. To study the environmental, financial and social impact of this energy transition, a team of scientists from three universities…

The digital lobby or the virtual advocacy, it seems to work. But in the long run, the quality of the relationships deteriorates, according to public affairs professionals from large companies. They miss the physical lobby, the contact in person. Read the blog of Erik van Venetië, trainer within the…

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 third edition of the Krijn Rietveld Memorial Innovation Award was won by Anne Dirkson, former LIACS PhD student. During her PhD she researched the automatic collection of patient experiences from online forums. ‘With this work, Anne has shown how the exchange of knowledge between medical professionals,…

A European consortium has provided a disruptive technological breakthrough to allow the discovery and characterization of novel enzymes for industrial biotechnology. The technology will open the way to more efficient industrial processes such as in the biofuel, animal feed and paper and pulp industr…

Various companies in the plant biotech industry will test a recent Leiden discovery in their crops. The ‘Pol Theta’ technology is developed in Leiden and makes it possible to reduce undesired side effects during genome engineering of plants.

BRAIN Biotech and the Leiden University will jointly develop an Aspergillus based production strain with high yield and thus contribute to a bio-based circular economy. The cooperation is based on BRAIN´s molecular tool BEC.

The standard approach to build a quantum computer with Majoranas as building blocks is to convert them into qubits. However, a promising application of quantum computing—quantum chemistry—would require these qubits to be converted again into so-called fermions. Physicists from Leiden and Delft suggest…

Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) will host some of Leiden University's IT equipment in its data centre. The two organisations signed an agreement to this effect on 10 April.

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

The elderly accept may minor discomforts like stiffer muscles and getting tired more quickly, but they do want to go to their children's birthdays independently. Preventive elderly care helps people with that. The goal is to let people grow old while maintaining their self-reliance and independence…

CREEA is a FP7 project on compiling and refining environmental and economic accounts. The project runs from April 2011 to March 2014.

How effective is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy in targeting epilepsy-related anxiety?

This project aims to identify which aspects of exploring a novel environment produce beneficial effects on memory. The effects of novelty will be investigated across the lifespan, including children, adolescents and older adults.

There are around 300,000 people in the Netherlands who donate blood on a regular basis. Women can give blood up to three times a year and men up to five times, resulting in approximately one million blood donations each year. Patients that receive this donated blood are already in a vulnerable condition,…

The Chemical Probe Facility is part of the Leiden Early Drug Discovery & Development (LED3) center. Activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) is one of the pillars of chemical biology. ABPP determines the activity of entire protein families in living cells and tissues under physiological conditions, such…

Here we provide information on the ways through which the Institute of Psychology aims to foster responsible scholarship practices: conducting research with integrity, and meeting the needs for better quality and efficiency in psychological science.

A neural network mimics how our brain works. Evolutionary algorithms use the principle of natural selection to solve complex problems. This kind of 'natural computing' is being used to improve the diagnosis of Parkinson's disease or the production of steel.

On 24 May 2017, the Hazelhoff Centre for Financial Law welcomed Shen Wei, Dean and Professor of law at Shandong University School of Law in China, for the 14th Hazelhoff Guest Lecture.

Access to information is a human right (United Nations, 1948). Information technology, such as search engines and recommender systems, has become the key mediator and facilitator to connect people to information (White, 2016). Conversational artificial intelligence (AI) technology is increasingly being…

Over the past century, the world population has grown exponentially, as has our need for energy and raw materials. If we wish to continue to live prosperously in the future, we have to radically restructure our economy and consumption. Scientific research shows us how to do this.

Founded in 2006, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy (HJD) is the world's leading research journal for the study of diplomacy and has made an important contribution to shaping diplomatic studies as an international academic field. Our mission is to present work from a variety of intellectual traditions for…

Evidence-informed policy-making is crucial for good governance. Yet, despite the abundance of evidence from research and evaluation available to decision-makers, we know little about the actual influence of evidence on government policies. The ‘Power of Evidence’ (PoE) research programme, directed by…

Physics and Engineering Approaches to Biomedicine and Pharmacology

We depend on nature for so many things: from clean water, wood and food to carbon absorption, water purification and coastal protection, as well as for relaxation, inspiration and identity. Nevertheless, our modern world putting increasing pressure on these ecosystem services. Leiden researchers investigate…

Plants, algae and cyanobacteria have the amazing capacity to perform delicate photophysical and photochemical processes of light capture, excitation transfer, charge separation and catalysis in fluctuating living environments. As a consequence, photosynthetic proteins and membranes form dynamic architectures.…