Dear Reader,

We often are asked what is the prime purpose of The Conversation? We believe a well functioning democracy requires an equally well informed citizenry. So our mission is simple: to provide you with a reliable source of high quality, evidence-based information.

The Conversation started from our headquarters in Australia in 2011 as an antidote to falling editorial standards and the growth of native advertising or PR masquerading as editorial to fill the vacuum. We are now five operations: AU, UK, US, France and Africa. All connected through the Melbourne run website and head office.

Over the year ahead our team of 90 editors across those 5 Newsrooms will work with our 30,000 accredited scientists, researchers and scholars across 1,500 universities to provide you with first class coverage of the US and Australian elections, the UK Brexit referendum, the Olympics, global issues such as Zika outbreak, and more.

And 2016 is off to a flying start. In January we had our highest ever audience, with 2.9 million unique visits and a further reach of 29 million through republication of our content on other sites under our Creative Commons publishing.

Thank you for your support and I will keep you posted on further developments during the year.

Andrew Jaspan