Leiden University, Netherlands invites online Application for number of Fully Funded PhD Degree at various Departments. We are providing a list of Fully Funded PhD Programs available at Leiden University, Netherlands.
Eligible candidate may Apply as soon as possible.
(01) PhD Degree – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: PhD Position on “Mental disorders as harmful stable states”
This research project, embedded within a large interdisciplinary team, investigates a central claim of network theory: that mental health problems may become self-maintaining, harmful attractor states, in which symptoms, behaviours, and contextual factors reinforce each other over time. This idea of harmful attractors has been a central tenet in the field, but direct empirical tests remain scarce. This speaks to crucial aspects of the phenomenology of mental illness broadly. The project will use existing intensive longitudinal patient data from NSMD and other projects to identify recurring within-person mental health states, study their persistence and transitions, and examine whether such attractor states predict clinically relevant outcomes such as relapse, comorbidity burden, symptom severity, and functioning. In the final part of the project, the PhD candidate will use NSMD SCED data currently being collected to investigate whether we can improve the effects of network-informed interventions by leveraging information on attractor states. There will also be room for creative input from the candidate to shape the project.
Deadline : 6 augustus 2026
(02) PhD Degree – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: PhD candidate in Acoustic ecology of diving seabirds
Offshore wind farms (OWFs) and CO2 storage sites at sea are crucial components in the green energy transition, but also pose a pressure and risk for the North Sea ecosystem. North Sea POWER is a new NWO-NWA project which will contribute directly to the so-called KEC framework for Assessing Ecological and Cumulative Effects’, by updates on mathematical models and by filling data gaps.
A current data gap of large potential impact concerns the effects of underwater noise on diving seabirds, which hear well and otherwise have limited sensory abilities to detect prey, avoid predators, or to communicate underwater. Sounds from construction and operation of OWFs and CO2 storage sites, maintenance vessels, and collateral acoustic changes at sea, may all contribute to spatial patterns and redistribution of diving seabirds, with potential population-level consequences.
The core questions that will be addressed in this PhD-project are: 1) Do guillemots use sounds underwater and is their foraging efficiency affected by noisy conditions? And 2) To what extent can underwater noise explain very large avoidance distances of guillemots around OWFs? Observational and experimental data will be collected on captive birds in a zoo and free-ranging birds at sea, using playback speakers, hydrophones, echosounders, and drones for auditory and visual observations.
Deadline : 15 juli 2026
View All Fully Funded PhD Positions Click Here
(03) PhD Degree – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: PhD candidate Photoadressable Quantum Photonics
Photonic integrated circuits are emerging as a key technology for future communication, sensing, and quantum computing systems. Current reconfigurable photonic platforms mostly rely on thermal tuning of optical waveguides, which requires continuous power consumption and limits scalability and energy efficiency. Developing low-power, stable, and programmable photonic hardware therefore represents an important challenge for next-generation photonic technologies.
In this research, you will explore a new class of photoaddressable and birefringent polymer materials that enable permanent, light-written reconfiguration of photonic circuits. By integrating these materials with low-loss silicon nitride waveguides, you will develop reconfigurable photonic devices for applications in quantum photonics, optical filtering, and photonic sensing. Particular emphasis will be placed on programmable Mach–Zehnder interferometers, reconfigurable optical filters, and low-loss quantum photonic circuits operating at telecommunications wavelengths. The project combines nanofabrication, optical experiments, materials science, and photonic circuit design to create energy-efficient and highly adaptable photonic technologies.
Deadline : 5 juli 2026
(04) PhD Degree – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Postdoctoral researcher Syntax of interactional linguistics
The project intends to explore what a model of grammar should look like in order to explain how the knowledge of the speaker and listener are expressed in morphosyntax. In particular, the aim of the postdoc’s work is to propose a way to incorporate evidentiality, egophoricity, and mirativity into a formal theory of grammar. Wiltschko’s (2014, 2021) universal and interactional spine hypothesis can form a starting point in this endeavour. We hope to find answers to the following questions:
- Which aspects of evidentiality/egophoricity/mirativity are indeed syntactic?
- What is the role of agreement in accounting for the connections between higher (e.g. Speaker and Addressee Ground) and lower areas of the spine, if any?
- Are there structurally/formally/theoretically different ways in which interactional aspects integrate in the grammar, differing between languages and/or between such aspects?
- What can co-expression of different aspects of epistemicity tell us about the possible underspecification and multifunctionality of the spine and/or formal features?
- Can the interpretational effects be accounted for by more basic features? For example, how do deictic features play a role (self/nonself, Rooryck 2019)?
Deadline : 10 juli 2026
(05) PhD Degree – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: PhD candidate fungal biology
Within the NWO-National Growthfund Program Cellular Agriculture (CAN) we are recruiting a highly motivated PhD student that will develop a non-model filamentous fungus as an ultimate host for the production of animal proteins from grass. In close collaboration with our academic partners (HAN-BioCentre, Nijmegen and Avans-UAS, Breda) and industrial partners (The Protein Express and Those Vegan Cowboys) these proteins will be produced and characterized for use in food applications. This CAN partnership covers the entire process chain: from strain design (Leiden University, Avans-UAS) and laboratory-scale fermentation (HAN BioCentre, The Protein Express) to process integration and validation (The Protein Express, Those Vegan Cowboys). All consortium partners will closely collaborate and learn from each other in all project work packages. The complementary expertise of all consortium partners will ensure successful development of this new bioprocess from start to finish. The position for the PhD student in this project is a crucial link within the project. Therefore, besides bringing scientific excellence our preferred candidate should also be an excellent team player.
Deadline : 30 juni 2026
Polite Follow-Up Email to Professor : When and How You should Write
Click here to know “How to write a Postdoc Job Application or Email”
(06) PhD Degree – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: PhD Position on early colonial North America
This project examines the interplay between communication choices and power dynamics in early colonial North America (1604–1664). Seventeenth-century North America was a crossroads of intercultural contact, where European colonizers, Indigenous peoples, and—through enslavement—African individuals converged, creating a complex multilingual environment. To navigate this linguistic landscape, settlers and Indigenous communities developed diverse communication strategies. These practices were not neutral: every language choice (from using interpreters to imposing a specific language) carried power implications, determining who held control in an encounter. During the early decades of European settlement in what Europeans called New Netherland, New France, Virginia, and New England, a continuous dynamic developed between language practices and shifting power balances. This site of tricontinental linguistic interaction presents a valuable opportunity to improve our understanding of how language and communication reflect and shape power dynamics in multilingual societies.
This project investigates five key multilingual interactions: among settlers; between competing colonies; between colonists and Indigenous communities; between colonists and enslaved individuals; and in communication with European leadership. The research team consists of comprising the Principal Investigator (Alisa van de Haar), the PhD, and a Postdoctoral researcher who will join the project in September 2027. Through comparative analyses, this team will improve our understanding of intercontinental interactions, multilingual practices, and the broader mechanisms of power structures through the lens of language.
Deadline : 1 september 2026
(07) PhD Degree – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: PhD in modeling of cell migration in complex ECMs to decode the risk for young adult skin cancer
The opening is for a research position within the field of computational science, mathematical or theoretical biology, computational physics, or applied mathematics. This PhD project is part of the EU project PhotoMel (Decoding Early-Life UVA and Skincare Additive Interactions Driving Melanoma Risk and Progression in Young Adults), a multidisciplinary consortium of 7 European universities and partners. Together, PhotoMel aims to prevent melanoma (skin cancer) onset in young adults by decoding the impact of chemical exposures on UVA-induced damage in early childhood, including ECM remodeling and skin cell mutations that shape the melanoma niche.
Your task will be to further develop two-dimensional models of melanoma cell migration in complex 2D ECMs. The goal will be to determine how UV/chemical-induced ECM changes affect melanoma cell migration, proliferation, and gene expression. We will build upon a recent hybrid Cellular Potts model (hCPM) of cell-ECM interactions, which couples CPMs of cell migration and cell traction with a molecular dynamics model of ECM fiber networks, and a PDE model describing growth factors and ECM-modifying enzymes. Models will be initiated with simulated data and imaging data of skin samples. At a later stage, the models can be extended to three dimensions using software developed concurrently by a postdoc in our team.
Deadline :14 juli 2026
(08) PhD Degree – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: PhD position: Nanoelectronics and nanofluidics combined with graphene edge sensors
DNA sequencing has become a widely accessible and affordable technology. Yet, the development has currently slowed down, and wider applications require further advances. Now, with the added goals of sequencing proteins and polysaccharides, current state-of-the-art single molecule sensors, that obtain information indirectly by measuring the ionic current of molecular ions through nanopores, cannot discriminate between moieties of similar molecular size (for instance, amino acids in proteins, or monosaccharides in glycans). The most advanced nanopore sensors can ‘read’ DNA polymers at the level of stretches of three nucleotides, but not at the level of a single nucleotide. True base-by-base DNA sequencing would be possible with a material of a thickness comparable to the size of a nucleotide, and that allows direct transverse electrical readout. In this project, we will use graphene as transverse electrodes to identify, characterize, and sequence single molecules that are similar in size yet of a different chemical composition. The use of graphene also inherently proposes a solid-state alternative to biopores. We will leverage the outstanding electrical, chemical and mechanical properties of monolayer graphene to create atomically thin readout electrodes embedded in a nanofluidic channel. Single nucleotides within DNA strands that are passed through such devices will be sequentially trapped between two graphene contact electrodes thanks to well-defined, chemically modified edges that are introduced onto the contacts. The contacts, thus bridged by a nucleotide, will yield a tunneling current uniquely characteristic for the trapped nucleotide. Of paramount importance for reaching the project objectives is the appropriate functionalization of the graphene edges. Importantly, the device architecture will be scalable and tunable by unique chemistries that allow the generation of functional graphene edges, thus creating sensors with unprecedented sensitivity and selectivity.
Deadline : 30 juni 2026
Click here to know “How to Write an Effective Cover Letter”
About Leiden University, Netherlands –Official Website
Leiden University (abbreviated as LEI; Dutch: Universiteit Leiden) is a public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. It was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William, Prince of Orange as the first university in the Netherlands.
During the Dutch Golden Age scholars from around Europe were attracted to the Dutch Republic for its climate of intellectual tolerance. Individuals such as René Descartes, Rembrandt, Christiaan Huygens, Hugo Grotius, Benedictus Spinoza, and later Baron d’Holbach were active in Leiden and environs.
The university has seven academic faculties and over fifty subject departments, housing more than forty national and international research institutes. Its historical primary campus consists of several buildings spread over Leiden, while a second campus located in The Hague houses a liberal arts college (Leiden University College The Hague) and several of its faculties. It is a member of the Coimbra Group, the Europaeum, and a founding member of the League of European Research Universities.
The university has produced twenty-six Spinoza Prize Laureates and sixteen Nobel Laureates. Members of the Dutch royal family such as Queen Juliana, Queen Beatrix, and King Willem-Alexander are alumni, and ten prime ministers of the Netherlands including Mark Rutte. US President John Quincy Adams also studied at the university.
Disclaimer: We try to ensure that the information we post on VacancyEdu.com is accurate. However, despite our best efforts, some of the content may contain errors. You can trust us, but please conduct your own checks too.
Related Posts
