Julia Folz is a PhD Candidate at the Cognitive Psychology unit under the supervision of Dr. Mariska Kret. Complying with her great interest in both Social and Affective Neuroscience, her PhD project in the CoPAN lab now allows Julia to look at mimicry of subtle emotional expressions in social interactions…

Bram Klievink is Professor of Public Administration, with a special focus on Digitalisation and Public Policy. He has a strong fascination with the interface between digitalisation and government. His research is about how digital innovations challenge the incumbent practices and institutions of public…

Passionate about underlying neurophysiological and cognitive processes, Lukas Kunz investigates the top-down influences of emotions and task instructions on early visual processing.

Prof.dr. E. van Dijk Prof.dr. M. Zeelenberg

Carla van Baalen was awarded the Thorbecke Medal on 4 June. She received the award in recognition of her remarkable and varied oeuvre in the field of parliamentary history.

Receiving a gift is nice, but giving a present also makes you happy. Development psychologist Mara van der Meulen former member of the Leiden Consortium on Individual Development (L-CID) answered four questions about giving gifts.

What reduces the likelihood of children being taken into care? Anouk Goemans calls for data-driven systems, alongside attention to the stories behind the numbers.

Olivier Morskate studied Public Administration at Leiden University and did an internship at the European Parliament's Liaison Office.

Genes predict whether you have a propensity for an illness but environmental factors often have the last word: nutrition, air pollution, lifestyle, stress. The exposome as both culprit and chance. Large-scale research is being carried out into this at Leiden. Thomas Hankemeier, Professor of Analytical…

Justin Spruit is a lecturer at the institute of Political Science.

Synchronised heart rates and skin conductance tell us that people are attracted to each other. This explains why we feel a romantic ‘click’ with some people and not with others. This is the result of research by psychologist Eliska Prochazkova from the Leiden Institute for Brain and Recognition, which…

The relationship between academia and democracy is a complicated one. Should policy makers listen to scientists or to citizens? That is the dilemma Valérie Pattyn and Johan Christensen will discuss with a panel of experts during the academic conference EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF).

The slogan of the Faculty of Archaeology, ‘The Future of the Past starts at Leiden University’, might sound like empty marketing speak. But there is something to it. The past can teach us a lot about climate change and that could make us fear the worst for our future. Archaeologist Gerrit Dusseldorp…

Working abroad can have consequences for the country where you need to take out health insurance, but also for your social security (such as entitlement to unemployment benefits (WW), sickness benefits (ZW), and disability benefits WIA), and your taxes (payroll tax). It may also have consequences for…

This summer, political scientist Thijs Vos received the Kaare Strøm prize for his paper ‘Power or Ideology? What structures legislative voting behaviour in Dutch municipal councils, ideology or coalition-opposition dynamics?' He was awarded the prize during the ECPR summer school on parliaments in F…

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) could be useful allies in the fight against critical environmental problems. Could because the use of GMOs is strictly regulated at the moment. A Leiden student team is now trying to make these GMOs safer with the aid of an ingenious lock.

Cookware handles, electrical plugs, brake pads. Unlike other plastics, these ‘thermosets’ cannot simply be melted down and reshaped, making them difficult to recycle. Chemist Roxanne Kieltyka and her team are now exploring a way to make these materials recyclable, potentially transforming the way we…

Within the same species of butterfly many different wing patterns can occur. How is this possible? According to researchers Ben Wielstra and Emma Berdan, of the Institute of Biology Leiden (IBL), the answer lies within supergenes. A supergene is a part of a chromosome that contains many strongly linked…

Sander van Kasteren (Professor of Molecular Immunology) makes the invisible visible. He will explain more in his inaugural lecture.

The LACDR green lab initiative is a group recently founded by employees of the LACDR. We are devoted to stimulating sustainability in our education and research! With the support of the Institute manager and scientific director of the LACDR, our main goal is making the labs more sustainable by e.g.…

Its idyllic setting and white sandy beaches have made the Maldives a hotspot for tourists. This provides an income but is a problem for the fragile natural environment. Students from various universities worked with the local people to make the soil more fertile. How did they go about it?

The availability of natural resources, the energy transition, the importance of circularity and our dependence on China. This and more is what Professor of Industrial Ecology René Kleijn's inaugural lecture is about.