Conditions for enrolment & selection procedure

Conditions in 2026-2027 are:

We admit students from Leiden University, Delft University of Technology, Erasmus University Rotterdam and students from hbo (universities of applied sciences) in Zuid-Holland. The lab is open to students with a diverse range of expertise. For example: natural sciences, social sciences, engineering, design, law, health, economics, management, humanities, philosophy, etc.
You will work on your master thesis this academic year. Preferably, you start your thesis (preparation) somewhere between October and April, so you can actively contribute to in-depth discussions from the start.
Your thesis accounts for 10 to 60 EC.
You find your own thesis supervisor(s) at your university. Supervision of your individual master thesis is not part of the LDE lab program.
You are motivated to join the half year – extracurricular – interdisciplinary program and will attend all 12 bi-weekly in-person sessions. Attendance is mandatory.
You agree with the workload of the program: approximately 60 hours in total.

Commitment we ask from you:

We ask you to attend and actively participate in all sessions of your Thesis Lab program. At the end of the program in July 2026, you will present data, results and/or conclusions from your thesis. You agree to prepare and share with us the following deliverables:

1. Your individual thesis report (no later than November 2027).
2. You contribute to the final event: together with your team you present and organise discussions with attending stakeholders. You will prepare for this event during the sessions of the program.
3. A shared interdisciplinary result with key takeaways for the case holder(s) and network. You will create this together with your lab team during the program and present at the final event. This can be any creative product that you agree upon with the case holder and your lab team, e.g.: a white paper, exposition, a manifesto, posters, or other combined output.

Certificate

Students receive a certificate of participation and a grade list (pass/fail) from the Honours Academy Leiden, with a value of 2 EC.
Students from Leiden University receive 2 EC on their diploma supplement as extracurricular activity.

The selection procedure is as follows:

Interested? Apply online through the link on the website! We ask you to apply for a lab and theme/assignment, write a short proposal detailing your preliminary research ideas and upload a recorded video pitch detailing your motivation to join the lab program.
After the deadline (first round 4 October, 23:59 | second round 15 November 23:59), we will review all applications.
Based on your application we will let you know by email if you are invited to an interview and when. Interviews will be held between 12 and 16 October).
If your study programme requires you to start your thesis earlier, please email us so we can hold an interview earlier at your request.
Interview process:
We organize online interviews of 15-25 minutes.
The interviews are conducted by the coordinators of the lab.
During the interview, we will discuss:
1. Your motivation: why do you want to join the Lab? Are you ready to commit to the lab program and to the extra work it requires? Will you be an active member of the interdisciplinary lab group?
2. The assignment you’re applying for: does the assignment you’re applying for fit your curriculum? Do you already have ideas of what you would like to research in your thesis?
We will let you know if you are selected by email after the interviews.
If you are selected, we ask you to find your own thesis supervisor (if you haven’t already found one already), as instructed by your own study programme. We can also match you with (an) case holder(s) of the thesis assignment or knowledge partner(s) involved in the lab. Together with them, your thesis supervisor and us, you can start to fine-tune your thesis.
The extracurricular Thesis Lab Program will officially kick-off in January 2027. If your study programme requires you to start your individual thesis earlier, we can connect you to relevant case holder(s) earlier.

Contact

If you have any questions after reading all the information, please contact us.