  The European Space Agency's Gaia space telescope, launched in 2013, aims to
measure the positions, parallaxes, and proper motions of a billion stars in our
Galaxy and throughout the Local Group. In doing so it will include hundreds of
thousands of young stars in star forming regions, star clusters and OB
associations. This will provide us with an unprecedented view of the role of
dynamics in the star formation process and the evolution of young star
clusters. Data from this ambitious mission is expected very soon, with the
first data release scheduled for 2016. This review discusses the current state
of our understanding of the kinematics of star formation and how the community
can best prepare for Gaia data.
