Open access scholarship on the world... for scholars across the world.

As new forms of electronic publishing and communication are making it ever easier for scholars to communicate across great distances, paradoxically there are fewer rigorous, peer-reviewed, accessible venues for scholars in many areas of the humanities and social sciences to publish the results of their research. GAIA is a unique collaboration between International and Area Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, the University of California Press, the California Digital Library, and internationally oriented research units on eight UC campuses. Our goal is to publish the best peer-reviewed scholarship within both established area and regional studies and new areas of inquiry that break down boundaries between traditional disciplines and regions.

All GAIA volumes are published digitally and made available free of charge to a global network of scholars. In so doing, we hope to encourage international intellectual exchange and to provide a viable model of distributed, peer-reviewed publication that responds to the increasing market pressures faced by traditional scholarly publishers.

GAIA and the University of California Press

All GAIA volumes are joint publications of IAS and the University of California Press, and the Press publishes print editions of most books. Publications are peer reviewed according to standards set by an interdisciplinary editorial board and approved for publication by the University of California Press. The Editorial Board of the University of California Press has approved the GAIA Editorial Board and through them we bestow the imprimatur of the University of California Press.

Audience and Author Affiliation

Although GAIA is a project of the University of California, we aim to build a global community of scholars among our authors and readers. We encourage English-language submissions from scholars across the world. The GAIA editorial program is open to scholars in global and international studies and all area studies, but we are especially interested in work that merges the strengths of traditional area studies with new global and transnational approaches.

GAIA, eScholarship, and the California Digital Library

GAIA is a peer-reviewed initiative within the eScholarship Digital Repository. GAIA forms the upper tier of a two-tier program for global, international, and area studies within the eScholarship Repository, with the first tier consisting of a number of affiliated UCIAS Working Papers seriesCalifornia Digital Library. The eScholarship initiative facilitates scholar-led innovations and supports experiments in the production and dissemination of scholarly communications.

GAIA and the UCIAS Digital Collection

GAIA was originally conceived as the UCIAS Digital Collection. More information about the initiative's history can be found in the UCIAS October 2002 Press release.