Editor's note

Dear reader,

Today is The Conversation’s sixth birthday in the UK, and it will soon also be six years since I arrived in its newsroom for an internship as a fresh-faced and somewhat apprehensive graduate.

I needn’t have been nervous – there were seven friendly and enthusiastic journalists on hand to guide me. As a reader, I was looking for engaging writing that was based on evidence – not just more of the shallow content that added to the internet noise I had grown up with. If I was to be a journalist, I knew I didn’t want to contribute more of that chatter. My new colleagues, many of whom came from mainstream journalism, felt the same.

It seems that The Conversation’s growth demonstrates that you, along with millions of other readers, were searching for something similar – and The Conversation has helped fill a gap.

At least 12 million of you visited our site last month, while many more read our experts’ work in thousands of other publications worldwide.

Our editorial team has grown, and we now have more than 80 university members. The Conversation has launched further editions around the world. We have diversified our formats to include podcasts, and soon we will launch Insights; something I have developed alongside editor Paul Keaveny. Insights will feature long-form articles written by academics working across different fields tackling some of the most urgent challenges of our time.

This is a project close to my heart. I have always been motivated by a sense that tackling the global issues of our time depends on collaborations – including the collaboration between academia and journalism.

We need your help to carry on delivering our expert-led research news and analysis. We are a charity, backed by our member universities and readers. So please become a Friend of The Conversation by making a donation – and support our campaign to cut through the noise.

Josephine Lethbridge

Insights Editor

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