The Universiteit Leiden, has awarded seed funding to 14 projects for consortia of universities from across Una Europa. This funding complements our central Una Europa Seed Funding, which will be launched with a new call on 14 October 2026, as well as the Una Europa Starter‑/Consolidator‑Funds available at Freie Universität Berlin.

We would like to introduce two current projects funded by the Universiteit Leiden's Seed Funding in which researchers from Freie Universität Berlin are participating:

• Prompting in a second language: sociolinguistic and contrastive perspectives on AI interaction
  • Dr. Naomi Truan (Universiteit Leiden) & Dr. Martin Konvička (FU Berlin)
• Exchanging best teaching practices of introductory physics laboratories across Europe
  • Dr. ir. Paul Logman (Universiteit Leiden), Dr. Christoph Kohstall & Dr. Beate Schattat (FU Berlin)

The project on physics laboratories, involving Christoph Kohstall and Beate Schattat, is a collaboration that also includes researchers from Jagiellonian University in Kraków and the University of Edinburgh, coordinated by Universiteit Leiden. This project aims to redesign introductory physics labs to make them more student-centred, research-informed, and relevant to emerging scientific fields. Moving beyond traditional “recipe-based” laboratory exercises, the project will create space for exploration, problem-solving, and authentic research practices, drawing on physics education expertise across Una Europa universities. Through a Community of Practice, researchers and lab instructors will share teaching approaches, develop and test new experiments, and address current challenges such as AI, modern data acquisition, and good scientific practice. With a focus on future materials and technologies — including quantum resistance and nitrogen-vacancy centres — the initiative aims to seed a European network for innovation in physics laboratory teaching, reaching more than 1,900 students across disciplines.

The second project, led by Naomi Truan and Martin Konvička, explores how multilingual university students use AI tools and how their attitudes towards language shape that use. Bringing together expertise in sociolinguistics, German studies, contrastive linguistics, and Dutch studies at Universiteit Leiden and Freie Universität Berlin, the collaboration will investigate how highly proficient multilingual students navigate large language models in two different university contexts. Through a shared multilingual survey, student-led interviews, and autoethnographic reflection, the project examines how AI influences choices around language use, switching, and perceptions of correctness or naturalness. Integrated into existing courses at both institutions, the project follows a student-centred design and will culminate in a joint hybrid workshop at Universiteit Leiden in January 2027. Situated within Una Europa’s focus on Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, the initiative addresses key questions of diversity, inclusion, and multilingualism in AI research, with all materials and data to be made openly available. Further projects of Martin Konvička can be explored at the Dahlem Center for Linguistics.

If you are interested in collaborating with Una Europa partner universities, be sure to join the launch webinar for the Una Europa Seed Funding Call on 14 October from 10:00-11:00.