Worldwide, more than a billion disposable plastic bags are used each year. It is unclear where these bags end up. Only 1% of them are recycled in Europe, and there is increasing evidence that the large majority end up in the natural environment. Although this problem is receiving increased attention, data for the Netherlands and the rest of Europe is scarce.
The Leiden University Thesis Prize was awarded on Alumni Day on 16 February. On this sunny Saturday, the seven nominees, one from each faculty, came with their family and friends to the Kamerlingh Onnes Building for the award ceremony of this annual prize for the best thesis.
The Leiden University Fund (LUF) has announced a new annual Snouck Hurgronje grant and prize. The grant is for an interfaculty research or teaching project and the prize is for innovative initiatives from the student community.
On Tuesday 20 November, Lilian Visscher, acting Director of Leiden University Fund (LUF) and Rector magnificus Carel Stolker, LUF Board member, met with with representatives of the Lutfia Rabbani Foundation to officially establish a new matching fund called the ‘Leiden University Fund - Lutfia Rabbani Foundation Scholarship’.
This summer the study association for Political Scientists (SPIL) traveled with a CASSA grant to Buenos Aires, Argentina, for their study trip. The aim of this journey was to give the participants, in addition to their university curriculum, a comprehensive picture of the political situation in the country of destination through the organization of political, journalistic, academic and cultural activities.
As a sixth-year medical student at Leiden University, Marianne van der Vaart got the chance to reseach pain perception in infants. With a LISF-scholarship, she travelled to Oxford to work on her computer model at the university's department of pediatrics.
Resistance to antibiotics is a major problem in health care. Thanks to a joint grant from the Elise Mathilde Fund and Leiden University Fund (LUF), supported by alumni donations, pharmacologist dr. Coen van Hasselt can look for new dosing schedules to reduce the development of antibiotic resistance.
During five weeks Willem Six visited, with support from the LISF, the trauma department at the King's College Hospital (KCH) and participated in trauma care as part of his internship.
Leiden University researchers Gisela Hirschmann (Political Science) and Niels van Doesum (Psychology) have been awarded a LUF/Gratama grant for their research on the effects of musical peacebuilding initiatives. When ‘enemies’ make music together, does that change the image they have of one another? And does this contribute to fostering peace in conflict areas?
For her Master's degree in Cultural Anthropology, Isabella van der Gaag has been doing ethnographic research in Ghana with the support of a LISF grant. For three months she studied environmental awareness at a Ghanaian secondary school.
