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Law Professor Ming Chen wrote a piece for The Conversation about a backlog in U.S. citizenship applications and what that means for civil and voting rights. Photo credit: Glenn Asakawa, CU Boulder

CU Boulder has joined leading Association of American Universities (AAU) peers by becoming a member of The Conversation, an independent, nonprofit publisher of analysis and commentary authored by academics and edited by journalists for the general public. 

The membership is a unique opportunity for faculty to share innovative research, scholarship and creative work with national and global audiences through short (800 to 1,000 word), compelling, first-person, academic expert-authored articles. 

With support from the Provost’s Office, the Research & Innovation Office and the Office of Strategic Relations and Communications, the campus now has access to a range of opportunities available to members of the online platform and content distributor. 

“We are truly excited about this new opportunity to get our faculty’s expertise to a broader audience where their extraordinary work can have even more impact,” Provost Russell L. Moore said. “We believe this will lead to even more high-profile exposure and greater awareness of CU Boulder’s research expertise, laying the groundwork for new partnerships and funding opportunities.”

The partnership is already being actively utilized by the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Law School, Leeds School of Business, CMCI, the School of Education, CIRES and the Renée Crown Wellness Institute. 

In addition to the measurable visibility through readership of The Conversation and its network of republishers, authors report significant increases in requests for further academic collaborations, support for current or future grants or funding support, citations for scholarly articles, influence on policy by decision-makers and requests for media interviews (radio, print and TV). 

How it works

Faculty members submit brief “pitches” for possible stories to The Conversation editors, in response to topic-specific requests, or proactively to share research, scholarship or creative work of interest to the public. Pitches can be made directly to editors through a simple online form, or with facilitation from a campus communication partner from a school, college, institute or the campus level. 

Once a pitch is accepted, faculty collaborate directly with editors from The Conversation to develop an article. Once complete, the piece is published in the online edition of The Conversation, included in the outlet’s outbound emails and made available to a network of potential republishers. CU Boulder also shares content by its authors through appropriate campus channels, including CU Boulder Today, e-newsletters and social media. 

Authors have access to an analytics dashboard and can see the number of reads the article has received, the geographic location of readers and where the piece has been republished. Dashboards also monitor all engagement on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn as well as comments on the site.

 mission is to promote truthful information and strengthen journalism by unlocking the rich diversity of academic research for audiences across America. Articles are free to read and republish on a Creative Commons license. The Conversation publishes about eight articles each day and, through direct publication and republication, generates 6 to 7 million reads per month.

Pieces in The Conversation are republished in outlets like The ���Ĺ���ý Post, TIME, Newsweek, CNN, Scientific American and many more. Through its partnerships with the Associated Press and Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc., articles are picked up in local newspapers­­­­­—providing analysis in communities that would not otherwise have been able to hear from these academics.

CU Boulder faculty voices

Here are a few recent pieces by CU Boulder authors:

• —Maxwell Boykoff, Environmental Studies / CIRES
• —Ming Hsu Chen, Law
• —Katherine Little, English
• —Evan Thomas, Engineering
• —Mark Serreze, Geography / CIRES / National Snow and Ice Data Center