For the first time, a group of international and interdisciplinary researchers led by Karline Janmaat and her former MSc Student Chirag Chittar, have tested the several hypotheses on music simultaneously in a modern foraging society during their daily search for tubers – their staple food. They found…

The thesis wishes to examine the pathways of thought underlying the creative act of music making and the performance practice of complex music from the late twentieth and early twenty-first century.

Intelligence of the crowd, or in other words, intelligence of a large, random collective, exists mostly in social media platforms such as twitter. The collective does not comprise (at least not necessarily) experts on crises, just regular people mostly. Nevertheless, there is valuable intelligence to…

On the 17th of January, Sarah Von Grebmer Zu Wolfsthurn successfully defended a doctoral thesis. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Sarah on this achievement!

The Great Rift Valley in Africa is a real treasure trove for discovering early human fossils. The fossils found in this part of Africa have determined our view of human evolution. But was the Great Rift Valley really the place where evolution took place or just a place where fossils are well preserved…

Bacterial chemosensory arrays are protein assemblies that are the key structural and functional component for motile bacteria to sense their internal or environmental chemical signals.

Indirect Method, Critique, and Responsibility in Derrida, Hegel, and Heidegger. Explores why Derrida, Hegel, and Heidegger conceive of their thought as a “movement” rather than as a presentation of results or conclusions.

Do you have to be able to say everything on Twitter and Facebook? Is Instagram morally obliged to remove photos from attacks? Should we allow the terrorist group to recruit new members on the internet?

In the Schouwburgstraat, LUGO is currently redesigning the back-garden in order to increase biodiversity and make it a more beautiful space. Throughout October 2023 until March 2024, we will be making changes to the garden with our team of volunteers.

On the28th of September Didi van Trijp successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Artificial photosynthesis has recognised potential to produce green and sustainable fuels from earth-abundant resources such as water, carbon dioxide (CO2), and sunlight.

What does the interspecies interpretation of the equality principle mean for the liberal democracy, and is it possible to provide for an appropriate legal and political position for animals without defying the classic-liberal principles of the liberal democratic state?

Mechanical metamaterials are man-made materials which derive their unusual properties from their structure rather than their composition.

Religious Studies at Leiden University allows you to study a broad spectrum of religions and their manifestations.

How can international investment law and arbitration take account of the public interest in, and more broadly, the public dimension of, the relations between foreign investors and host States ?

In this dissertation, the types of context Dutch speakers need to interpret the poly-interpretable word ergens ‘somewhere/anywhere’ are studied.

Jasmina Mačkić, Assistant Professor of Human Rights Law at the Europa Institute, has published her book, Proving Discriminatory Violence at the European Court of Human Rights. This work is based on her doctoral dissertation, which she defended in May 2017 and which was funded by the Netherlands Organisation…

The most famous monument of the Dutch Golden Age is undoubtedly the Amsterdam Town Hall by architect Jacob van Campen inaugurated in 1655.

In surface science there is great effort to move from studying simple, flat model surfaces in vacuum to investigating more complex model catalysts in gas environments (in situ). This thesis gives three examples of such studies using microscopy and spectroscopy.

When and how does social anxiety develop? How can it go astray in some adolescents? How can we help troubled young people to attend school regularly and return to a normal developmental pathway?

Engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) are widely used, and nanotechnological innovations grow with rapid pace. Studies on nanotoxicology have demonstrated that chemical toxicology as well as particle toxicology should be accounted for in predicting the safety of ENMs.

On 10 February 2022, Christian Mommers defended the thesis 'Voluntary return and the limits of individual responsibility in the EU Returns Directive'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. P.R. Rodrigues and Prof. P. Boeles.

On 9 September 2020, Ruben de Graaff defended his thesis 'Concurrence in European Private Law'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. A.G. Castermans and Prof. S.C.G. Van den Bogaert.

How does invasive hybridization affect threatened native species?

Can we find new chemical and biological sensing routes on the edge and surface of graphene to improve the potential of graphene to act as a sensor?

In this paper, Sibgatullina and Abbas aim to illuminate the complex connections between the European right-wing movements and Islam and discusses how the adoption of Muslim identity may function as a politically strategic opportunity for European conservative forces.

In this article, Dimiter Toshkov aims to explains the gender gap in COVID-19 vaccination attitudes.

Our in-house human skin equivalents contain all stratum corneum (SC) barrier lipid classes, but have a reduced level of free fatty acids (FAs), of which a part is mono-unsaturated. These differences lead to an altered SC lipid organization and thereby a reduced barrier function compared to human skin.…

In this article, Bart Schuurman and Sarah Louise Carthy conduct further research into the understanding of the causes of terrorism by assessing differences and similarities between left-, right- and jihadist extremists and terrorists. The article draws on the Analysen zum Terrorismus, one of the most…

This thesis presents a thorough survey of the central aspects of the phonology of Shaoxing Chinese from a synchronic perspective and on the basis of recent theoretical phonological developments, with the secondary goal of casting some light on current issues in Modern Chinese (Mandarin).

A theoretical project on the insights gained by human (including infant), nonhuman animal and computational studies on artificial grammar learning; identifying the critical questions for future research by developing novel experimental and computational approaches to address these issues.

When does teacher agency occur in the university context, and how is this related to teaching?

In recent years, and especially since the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011, a growing body of research, media reporting, and scholarly literature has focused on the role of ‘Arab youth’ as the drivers of social and political movements across the Middle East and North Africa.

Promotor: E. Bouwman, Co-promotor: S. Bonnet

Students with learning problems experience difficulties in reading, writing, and content-area learning into and throughout their secondary-school years

In this research, for the first time a detailed description as well as systematic and comparative analysis of the final particle system in Chinese are provided.

Does a moving hybrid zone leave a genomic footprint?

The rise and fall of the cesspit in an urban context

Refugees’ effect on domestic terrorism is conditioned by host-country social perception (attitude about living next-door to foreigners) and economic competition. These hypotheses are tested cross-nationally from 1995-2014 leveraging data from the World Values Survey.

Astronomical observations of cold regions in the universe show a rich inventory of ices. Part of these ices may end up on planets like our own, but in that journey they will be exposed to considerable amounts of radiation.

What plants grow along ditches in the Leiden region? What does this say about vegetation quality? Could it be better? Naturalis and Leiden University's Center for Environmental Sciences are looking for your help to answer these questions.

On 29 September 2020, Tom van Ham defended his thesis 'Collective violence offenders and offending. The role of individual characteristics'. The doctoral research was supervised by Prof. A.A.J. Blokland, Prof. O.M.J. Adang (RUG) and Prof. Th.A.H. Doreleijers (VUMC).

A study of early medieval reopened graves

Cholesterol influences many pathways, including serving as precursor for adrenal steroidogenesis. Imbalance of cholesterol levels has been implicated in several diseases including cardiovascular diseases and its underlying pathology, atherosclerosis.

This study proposes a theory for the encoding of specificity and definiteness in the Chinese nominal based on Cantonese, Mandarin and Wenzhou data.

Due to the modern techniques of combinatorial chemistry and high-throughput screening, data on the biological activity of many millions of compounds is known. However, it is still very difficult to transfer this data into knowledge: if we know that compounds A and B bind to a certain protein with high…

The master's specialisation Molecular, Cellular and Organismal Biology at Leiden University examines the molecular mechanisms underlying health and disease and how cells and organisms adapt to environmental factors.

The master’s specialisation Artificial Intelligence offers future-oriented topics in computer science with a focus on machine learning, optimization algorithms, and decision support techniques.

If you are about to embark on a master’s in Leiden and the city and university are completely new to you, you should seriously consider participating an introduction week.