This article explores discursive languages through which leading women in the International Federation of University Women (IFUW) articulated their understandings of world citizenship and looks at what Caroline Spurgeon, the first President of the IFUW, called the "organised training of women to be citizens of the world." The central section focuses on how the IFUW dealt with aspirations of national minorities in relation to dominant IFUW understandings of borders, territories and frontiers. The final sections focus on notions of scientific internationalism as they played out in the IFUW's campaign around the nationality of married women and circulated in the League of Nations. The postscript comments briefly on historical approaches to researching the complexities of the IFUW's engagement in national, international and transnational arenas. (Contains 127 footnotes.)