The Union Académique Internationale (UAI) is an international organisation of national academies in the fields of human and social sciences. Its objectives are to initiate, recognise, promote and finance long-term international research projects. Founded in 1919 in Paris with a General Secretariat established in Brussels, the UAI consists today of around one hundred Academies, from 63 countries across every continent. Conscious that numerous projects of a wide scope in human and social sciences cannot be undertaken and carried out in a short space of time, UAI has declared itself ready to support important long-term projects. The UAI already sponsors over 3000 works. Many of those are fundamental reference tools, such as dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and text editions, of which certain publications are available on the web. The UAI is constantly launching new international projects, the most recent regarding the transformation of Mediterranean cities throughout history.