The Journal of Global Change Data & Discovery is a peer-reviewed journal in both print version and online openly e-version and published in both English and Chinese. It focuses on publishing data papers relevant with and directly linked to the online datasets published at the Global Change Research Data Publishing & Repository (GCdataPR) and high quality articles on updated data policies, technologies and capacity buildings. Global change research is a comprehensive subject which is related to geography, natural resources, ecosystems, environment, cities and villages, natural and human elements, global, regional and local scales, as well as different time period. For such an interdisciplinary, comprehensive, and dynamic discipline, reliable application, cross application, and repeated application of data have become the most important characteristics of disciplinary development. One of the most important specifics of this journal is diversity and integration in the global change field. The journal pays more attention to the comprehensive way to publish multi-dimension articles.

The Global Change Research Data Publishing & Repository (GCdataPR for short) including datasets, data papers and metadata. September 2017, the Guidelines of GCdataPR was released, which includes the term, policy, procedure and regulations about the global change research data publishing, repository and sharing.