Promotores: G.R. de Snoo, W.T. de Groot, Co-promotor: C.J.M. Musters

As a contribution to the changing legislation and evolving societal attitudes concerning environmental issues, this project aims to enhance and manipulate the plants’ own natural defense mechanisms against western flower thrips (WFT).

On the 2nd of September Jiyan Qiao successfully defended a doctoral thesis and graduated.

Operators in the Lexicon opens with an old chestnut: why are there no natural single word lexicalizations for negations of the propositional operator and and the predicate calculus operator all: why neither *nand nor *nall?

Multi-objective optimization is an effective technique for finding optimal solutions that balance several conflicting objectives. It has been applied in many fields of our world, because practical problems usually have more than one desired goal. For example, developing a new vehicle component might…

How can mega sand nourishments, such as the Sand Motor, be designed and managed for optimal ecosystem services provision ?

Idrees Kanth defended his thesis on 7 May 2019

How do processes of coalition-formation influence patterns of decision-making in the European Union?

The project concerns the nature, the usages and functions of pictographic systems in relation to writing in societies with (restricted) literacy.

This thesis aims at contributing to our understanding of the semantic and prosodic properties of object foci in Greek, employing theoretical and experimental tools.

What are the biological effects of Chinese herbal medicine in regulation of cancer cell metastasis?

It has now been well established that shocks and turbulent motions in the intra-cluster medium (ICM) generated through cluster mergers can produce large-scale synchrotron emission.

Can zebrafish larvae be used as a behavioural model for screening natural products as potential neurotropic drugs?

How does contemporary art and culture represent nuclear contamination in post-nuclear landscapes?

Plants and soils from natural ecosystems harbor great diversity of soil microorganisms, which could potentially contribute to the sustainability of horticulture. The knowledge about using wild plant species and soil from natural ecosystem to improve the crop health will advance the application of ecological…

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

The Animated Image addresses the entire range of contexts in which images were described by Roman authors as being animated, as well as the accounts that Roman writers produced to explain the animation of inanimate matter.

This project aims to assess the risk of spread of antimicrobial resistance genes in the environment derived from currently used synthetic biology approaches in the field of drug discovery.

This thesis describes the role of pollution, specifically neonicotinoid insecticides, as an actor of the ongoing biodiversity decline.

The main question addressed in this thesis is how we can best conceive the contrast between a priori and empirical truths.

This book investigates the effects of brain lesions in the left hemisphere, specifically Broca's area, on the production and perception of vowels, of word tones and of the linguistic use of sentence melody.

The main topic of the book is the nature of inner aspect of the Verb Phrase, and the relation between the decompositional and the quantificational approaches to this problem.

We study the link between the acoustic, behavioral and physiological health of birds and prominent pollution factors. We aim to explore causation through experimental studies on detrimental factors like traffic noise, particulate matter and chemical toxins. Our primary target is scientific progress…

Wouter Moerland is on a two-year secondment as ecology adviser at the Municipality of Leiden. This biology alumnus talks animatedly about his work. ‘We’re working hard to increase nature’s chances in town.’

On 19 and 20 March, the reporters of the ELI Project on Rescue of Business in Insolvency Law (Prof. Bob Wessels Prof. Stephan Madaus, Halle-Wittenberg, Ass. Prof. Kristin van Zwieten, Oxford) chaired a conference to present the preliminary results of this project. The project, initiated by the European…

Can we link multiple components from herbal extracts with their biological activities?

Researchers of eLaw, the Center for Law and Digital Technologies at Leiden University, published their research in Nature Machine Intelligence. The publication, written by Eduard Fosch-Villaronga, Pranav Khanna, Hadassah Drukarch, and Bart Custers, focuses on the legal and regulatory implications of…

Biodiversity and healthy ecosystems continue to decline in Europe, which has serious consequences for human welfare. These are findings of a report that was formally approved by delegates from 127 governments during a UN plenary in Medellin, Colombia. Leiden researcher Alexander van Oudenhoven was one…

Your local city park may be improving your health, according to a new paper led by Leiden environmental scientist Roy Remme. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Remme and his colleagues describe how access to nature increases people’s physical activity—and therefore overall health—in…

On Monday-Wednesday 10-12 June 2019, Jeroen Wolbers, Wout Broekema and Sanneke Kuipers represented the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA) at the fourth edition of the Northern European Conference on Emergency and Disaster Studies (NEEDS).

Nature published an article on the new wall formulas in the Leiden city center. On November 22nd, Leiden University celebrated the opening of three new wall formulas. A total of six formulas are now painted on walls across the historic center.

'The World Upside Down. The Geographical Revolution in Humanist Commentaries on Pliny's Natural History and Mela's De situ orbis (140-1700)', in: Enenkel, K.A.E. & Nellen, H. (Eds.), Neo-Latin Commentaries and the Management of Knowledge in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period (1400-1700).Humanistica…

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.

The changing status of anatomical collections from the early modern period to date.

Mining for natural resources harms the environment. But we desperately need them, for both the development of countries and the transition to a sustainable energy system. Professor of Sustainable Resource Use Ester van der Voet researches how we can reduce the environmental impact of natural resources…

The precolonial inhabitants of the Caribbean islands communicated, travelled, and exchanged objects and ideas along an expansive inter-island network. New methods of computer modeling shed light on these networks. Emma Slayton is set to discuss her work on this topic at her Defense on the 12th of Se…

‘Make more room for nature on farmland and you'll be surprised at the result.' This was the advice from Geert de Snoo in his Dies lecture.

In his dissertation Michiel Hooykaas outlines the results of six empirical research projects focused at biodiversity awareness in the Netherlands, specifically people’s knowledge about animals.

Promotor: Prof.dr. P. Stevenhagen, Co-promotor: Prof. dr. B. de Smit

LEAP is a peer-reviewed journal founded in 2021 by a team of junior and senior scholars of Leiden University as part of a Faculty-broad Master course. Each year the journal has a new editorial board and a new theme. Series editors Astrid van Weyenberg and Nanne Timmer guide this process and are assisted…

What is the impact of humans on nature? In Science an article appeared in which researchers try to give an answer to that question. Biogeographer and postdoc at LUCL Sietze Norder is one of its authors.

In March, the Honours Academy will be launching two new Master Honours Classes. In these classes, students with a curious mind will have the opportunity to do research into the relationship between humans and nature or to work on an innovation for the healthcare sector. ‘This will allow students from…

A sense of security plays an important role in the decision to contribute to nature conservation. Stacey Mac Donald conducted four years of research on the influence of social and political changes and the (post) colonial context on nature conservation in the Dutch Caribbean. On 17 May she will defend…

In January 2020, Marja Spierenburg joined the FSW as the new Professor of Anthropology of Sustainability and Livelihoods. Let’s get to know her. ‘All my research is basically about nature conservation. I look at areas like national parks, but also at measures aimed at increasing the sustainability of…

Indonesian Law and Reality in the Mahakam Delta

The role of culture and diverse knowledge systems needs to be recognized when assessing nature’s contributions to people, a new policy forum paper in Science states. Alexander van Oudenhoven and thirty global experts present a new approach that will increase the effectiveness and legitimacy of policies…