About the Big Brains Podcast
Since its launch in 2018, the Big Brains podcast from the University of Chicago has featured Nobel laureates and world-leading scholars providing their trusted expertise on critical issues shaping our world. This has allowed Big Brains to build an unmatched reputation as the convener of the world’s brightest minds—and a trusted and reliable source for sharing academic research.
Thanks to the support of our dedicated listeners, in 2022, Big Brains celebrated its milestone 100th podcast episode and set out to achieve one goal— to attract an even larger audience for UChicago research by translating big ideas and complex discoveries into easy-to-understand concepts that any listener could share at a dinner table conversation.
Big Brains, little bites.
By adopting a more “conversational” tone and leveraging new marketing tactics, the podcast became more accessible, and the results were astonishing—downloads of Big Brains increased nearly 35 percent from last year (443K downloads in 2022). On average, the podcast was downloaded nearly 10K more times each month last year vs. the previous year. Furthermore, YouTube views of the podcast jumped an impressive 85 percent to 140,245 in 2022.
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Your contributions help us grow Big Brains through improved episode production, an expanded podcast media presence, recording more interviews with UChicago scholars, and enhancing our ability to communicate the impact of UChicago research to larger portions of the public.
We illustrate the impact of UChicago research to a global audience
The Big Brains team greatly appreciates your support of the podcast and our mission of sharing the impact of UChicago research with a global audience.
The Big Brains podcast was created to support our faculty’s pioneering research, and share their stories to a broader, intellectually curious audience. The podcast’s listenership has grown exponentially since its 2018 debut, and with your help, we can further communicate the impact of UChicago scholars’ field-defining work and broaden awareness of the eminence of the University of Chicago.
Why are donations necessary?
The Big Brains podcast is entirely produced by Office of Communications staff and funded through internal resources. Gifts like yours allow us to further the podcast’s reach and influence, and help UChicago become better recognized as one of the world’s leading research universities.