Tilburg University is a public research university in Tilburg, a city in the province of North Brabant in the southern Netherlands. Its facilities are concentrated on a single wooded campus along the Warandelaan on the northern edge of the city. The institution focuses its teaching and research on the social sciences and humanities, an orientation it captures in its motto, "Understanding Society."

The university traces its origins to 1927, when it was founded as a Roman Catholic college of commerce. It was renamed several times over the following decades, reflecting a gradual broadening of its remit from economics toward law and the wider social sciences, before adopting its present name. Today it enrols roughly 19,000 students (2024) and employs about 3,000 FTE staff, and it has accumulated a large alumni community over its history. A substantial share of its degree programmes, particularly at master's level, are taught in English, and the student body includes a significant international contingent.

Academically, Tilburg is organized into five schools: Economics and Management; Law; Social and Behavioral Sciences; Humanities and Digital Sciences; and Catholic Theology. It is recognized internationally for its work in economics, business, finance, law, and the behavioral and social sciences, fields in which its research is widely cited. The university also houses University College Tilburg, a liberal arts and sciences honors college. While it has broadly secularized in governance and admissions, it retains a formal Catholic heritage dating from its founding and remains one of the specialized, social-science-focused universities within the Dutch higher-education system.