In July 2025, UCLA was notified that $584 million in federal research funding from agencies including the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was suspended. This decision threatened not only UCLA researchers and their work, but the millions of Americans whose health, safety and future depend on publicly funded research.
In response, UCLA Strategic Communications rapidly launched Research Powers Progress, a multi-channel marketing and communications initiative to raise awareness of the value of research funding and UCLA’s impact.
Our goals were to increase awareness of the value of UCLA research, drive traffic to (and action on) ucla.edu/research, increase public awareness around how research takes place at higher education institutions, and how cuts to that funding impact everyday life.
Second, we featured the Office of the President’s Stand Up for UC campaign on the webpage, inviting audiences to show support (e.g. sign up, contact congressional representatives & local lawmakers and more.) We also sought to galvanize the Bruin community (staff, faculty, students and alumni) to share their stories — both their work in research and the impact of research on their lives.
Our key performance indicators (KPIs) and how we measured success:
Action Plan:
The suspension of $584 million placed UCLA at the center of an unprecedented national moment. As the only UC campus facing this immediate threat, other campuses closely watched how high-stakes communications could influence public understanding and advocacy.
What made Research Powers Progress distinctive was the speed, scale and integration of its execution around a narrative that demonstrated the life-saving, life-changing impact of university research. With a limited runway, UCLA Strategic Communications rapidly activated a 360-degree campaign that combined paid media, social, web, earned media, and internal and executive communications. Brand marketing leaders strategically repurposed pre-allocated media dollars to launch paid and boosted social content without delay.
The audience strategy was equally innovative. Paid media and geotargeting prioritized areas with high concentrations of UCLA students and alumni, alongside state and national policymakers, and news and research affinity users — ensuring outreach to those most likely to amplify the message and influence conversations at local and national levels. We also purposefully included media outlets from New York and Washington, D.C.
Creatively, the campaign introduced a flexible visual identity and tagline — Research Powers Progress — intentionally designed for participation. Schools and departments across campus could adapt ‘progress’ to reflect their specific impact, enabling broad adoption without fragmenting the message. For example: Research Powers Cancer Treatments.
Internal communications sourced content by activating the Bruin community. Weekly outreach to 67,000 faculty and staff invited story submissions via a digital form, resulting in authentic, human-centered content featured across the microsite, social channels and newsletters.
Execution:
UCLA Strategic Communications executed a multi-pronged strategy that combined digital, social, paid media, earned media, storytelling, creative development and analytics to clearly communicate what is at stake when public research funding is withheld.
Central to the effort was close collaboration across integrated marketing, media relations, studio, social, internal communications and analytics teams. Media relations quickly established a network of faculty and student researchers prepared to speak publicly about the impact of funding disruption and coached them to engage effectively with national media. Editorial teams worked with science and policy reporters to publish timely stories in the UCLA Newsroom and UCLA Magazine, which were aggregated on a dedicated, ADA-compliant microsite optimized for SEO and regularly refreshed to sustain momentum.
The microsite served as both a public education hub and a signaling tool for reporters, reinforcing UCLA’s commitment to elevating research stories. The studio team partnered with media and faculty to produce companion videos, including a first-of-its-kind stop-motion animation created with an external agency, adding emotional resonance and creative distinction to the campaign.
Social and paid media amplified editorial and video content across Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn and programmatic news platforms, driving traffic to the microsite, inviting participation through a submission form and by sharing #ResearchPowersProgress. User-generated content further humanized the message, expanding reach.
Internal communications activated UCLA’s marketing and communications community to contribute stories and amplify the campaign using #ResearchPowersProgress. Throughout the effort, insights and analytics guided content prioritization, audience targeting and optimization — ensuring resources were deployed efficiently; strategically.
The campaign (from 8/1/25 – 5/31/26) generated 255,000 page views to our microsite (75% of which was driven by a precision-targeted paid media plan). Comparing YoY, total pageviews increased by 1,150%.
The social campaign netted 40M total impressions, 17M video views and 30K shares across UCLA-owned channels (Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and X). We created #ResearchPowersProgress to drive advocacy, and it was used 2,000 times in earned media posts by non-UCLA audiences.
Video views outpaced FY '25 median video views per post by 1,000x. The paid social part of the campaign was designed to reach a larger audience, with 70% of the paid budget directed to non-California audiences and leading Congressional districts. Earned social mentions also peaked at 150K, generating 4M engagements.
The campaign earned 17K traditional media mentions and 1,000 media placements in leading news outlets, demonstrating the power of rapid, integrated communications to influence awareness during a national moment. Of the 17K media mentions placed in online news, sharing these articles generated 545K additional discussions and engagements on X and Facebook. Media outlets generating the most PR coverage included the LA Times, NY Times, KNX 1070, Spectrum, NPR, The Guardian, ABC7, Yahoo!, Politico, KCRW, LAist, KTLA, Fox News, KNBC and more.
The campaign reinforced UCLA’s reputation as a research powerhouse while clearly articulating the consequences of reduced investment in publicly funded research institutions. Funding was restored after a court ruling, but UCLA continues to highlight how publicly funded research changes lives.
