What does it mean to do “global research”? Global studies is an emerging field that focuses on transboundary, international, and global processes and systems, such as climate change, global social media, and globalization. These issues call for researchers to think beyond conventional state actors or any individual disciplines. Global studies represent a holistic approach that aims to understand contemporary global issues from multi-disciplinary, multi-level, and interactive perspectives.

On 17 May 2023, GTGC participated in the Leiden University symposium on interdisciplinary research together with the eight other interfaculty ‘stimulation programmes’.

The GTGC programme advances interdisciplinary research on how we govern – and could govern – major world-scale changes in contemporary society. These global transformations and governance challenges cover the themes listed here. The distinctions are not rigid, of course, and affiliated researchers often work across several thematic areas, including their interconnections.

To support interdisciplinary research on today's world-scale changes and governing challenges, the GTGC programme has awarded a number of seed grants to scholars at Leiden University collaborating across different faculties and institutes.

The GTGC programme offers seed grants to researchers at Leiden University for the purpose of developing new interdisciplinary research that address related themes on global transformations, governance challenges, and citizen engagement.

On 10 June, GTGC Chair Prof. Jan Aart Scholte, together with Soledad Garcia Ferrari of the University of Edinburgh, spoke at the launch of The Hague Global Futures Hub.

Strategic direction of the GTGC initiative lies with a Steering Group, composed of seven members from four Leiden University faculties. Chaired by Leiden's Professor of Global Transformations and Governance Challenges, the Steering Group addresses questions such as overall vision, staffing, communications, budget, outputs and impact.

Eve Darian-Smith and Phil McCarty presented their book 'The Global Turn Theories, Research Designs, and Methods for Global Studies' during a book presentation seminar.

On Monday 22 April, Dr. Crystal Ennis, Dr. Shivant Jhagroe, and Dr. Yujing Tan will presented the progress of their Seed Grant project 'Governing Delivery Platform Companies'. This project examines the interaction between platform companies, local authorities, workers, and households to understand the multilevel governance of delivery platforms.

Global Transformations and Governance Challenges (GTGC) at Leiden University aims to advance knowledge and practice on how we govern – and could govern – major world-scale changes in contemporary society. These global transformations include hegemonic and other geopolitical shifts, ecological changes, technological innovations, pandemics, demographic trends, economic restructuring, reconfigured identities, and altered forms of violence and peacebuilding.