The proposal to create the Intercontinental Academia was brought up during the meeting of the Steering Committee of Ubias (University-Based Institutes for Advanced Studies - a network between national institutes of advanced studies of 36 universities around the world), held in March 2012 at the Institute for Advanced Study Jawaharlal Nehru, in New Delhi, India. The initial idea was of the then director of the IAS of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, Eliezer Rabinovici. The IEA-USP and the IAR (Institute for Advanced Research) of the Nagoya University felt motivated by the insight of the Israeli scientist and decided to be behind the pilot project for this initiative, which operates as a joint venture.