#  New CGA Sponsorship for the Geography, Life and Data Podcast—We’re GLaD to be here! 

 



The process of moving from one job to another (and one country to another) necessarily involves a lot of transition: adapting to a new institutional culture, getting to know new teams and new projects, and also leaving behind colleagues, research projects, and other ongoing collaborations.

One of these collaborations, near and dear to my heart, is the [GLaD podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3n79ptWoAM55YfHoTuBfHu?si=2d691d6e2bc6465d), which I have co-hosted for the past two years with [Dani Arribas-Bel](https://darribas.org/) at the University of Liverpool and [Levi Wolf](https://www.ljwolf.org/) at the University of Bristol. Billed as a podcast about “geography, life, *geography life*, and data” our monthly (more or less) episodes have covered fashionable spatial research topics like 15-minute cities or digital twins, but also navigating the academic job market, the peer-reviewed publication process, and academic conferences.

Ours is not a professionally-produced podcast. It’s not slick and polished. Sometimes the sound quality is lacking. Occasionally there are awkward silences. But we always come to the project with a common goal: interesting conversation and, hopefully, a few hot takes. If we had a mission statement, it would probably be something about increasing the visibility of spatial research and researchers and talking about the issues that affect all of us in a friendly and accessible way.

In that spirit, we’ve had episodes that covered leaving academia (“Quitters”), time mis-management, and how AI is affecting our work and lives. Our sporadic “Day in the life of…” theme brings special guests into our virtual studio to talk about what they do and, especially, *how* they do it.

Part of being an amateur production means we are constantly hustling for sponsorship. We don’t need much: Dani, Levi, and I volunteer our time and the equipment needs are small. But there are costs: recording platform, hosting fees, and sound editing. Until spring of 2025 this sponsorship was provided by the Science of Cities and Regions program in Urban Analytics at the [Alan Turing Institute](https://www.turing.ac.uk/) (the UK’s national institute for data science and AI), where Dani and I worked part-time and where all three of us held fellowships at one time or another. This support came to an end this spring and we’d been debating how best to proceed (Fewer episodes? No sound editing?).

Dani stepped in to cover platform subscription from the University of Liverpool, but that left costs associated with episode editing. Then I started thinking. Where could we find an established center or institute with an international reputation in spatial or geographic research? A place that could benefit from the visibility of our efforts?

Punchline: it gives me great pleasure (and relief) to confirm that GLaD will be sponsored by the Center for Geographic Analysis. A home at CGA makes so much sense. It’s a natural fit for a podcast that deals in spatial research and community and provides an excellent platform for increasing CGA visibility.

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Haven’t encountered GLaD yet?

[Check it out](https://gladpodcast.podbean.com) and let us know your ideas for future episodes and guests! We’re…GLaD to be here!

-Rachel Franklin