Courant algebroid and Lie bialgebroid contractions

Contractions of Leibniz algebras and Courant algebroids by means of (1,1)-tensors are introduced and studied. An appropriate version of Nijenhuis tensors leads to natural deformations of Dirac structures and Lie bialgebroids. One recovers presymplectic-Nijenhuis structures, Poisson-Nijenhuis structures, and triangular Lie bialgebroids as particular examples.