In the 25 years since their introduction, Higgs bundles have seen a surprising number of interactions within different areas of mathematics and physics. There is a recent surge of interest following Ngo Bau Chau's proof of the Fundamental Lemma and the work of Kapustin and Witten on the Geometric Langlands program. The program on The Geometry, Topology and Physics of Moduli Spaces of Higgs Bundles, was held at the Institute for Mathematical Sciences at the National University of Singapore during 2014. It hosted a number of lectures on recent topics of importance related to Higgs bundles, and it is the purpose of this volume to collect these lectures in a form accessible to graduate students and young researchers interested in learning more about this field.

This volume is based on four advanced courses held at the Centre de Recerca Matematica (CRM), Barcelona. It presents both background information and recent developments on selected topics that are experiencing extraordinary growth within the broad research area of geometry and quantization of moduli spaces. The lectures focus on the geometry of moduli spaces which are mostly associated to compact Riemann surfaces, and are presented from both classical and quantum perspectives.