University Challenge 2022: when does new series start, and when does Amol Rajan replace Jeremy Paxman as host?

The 2022-23 season of University Challenge will see quiz teams representing universities across the UK, and the colleges the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge compete over 37 weeks.

Last year Imperial College London came out on top and will be looking to defend their crown as dozens of teams vie to usurp their position.

Jeremy Paxman will return to present the show, it will be his final season as question master.

How does University Challenge work?

28 teams will take part in head-to-head competitions - the winning teams will go through to the next round and be joined by the winners of head-to-heads between the four highest scoring losing teams.

These top 16 teams will then take part in another round of head-to-heads, with the winners making the quarter finals.

Teams must win two matches in the quarter finals to progress to the semi finals - the two winning teams from the semi-finals will compete against each other in the grand final.

Who is Jeremy Paxman?

Jeremy Paxman is only the second host of University Challenge - Bamber Gascoigne was the first host from 1962-1987.

The show then went off air until 1994, when it returned with Paxman at the helm - he has presented more than 400 episodes of the show since then.

Paxman is a journalist who was born in Leeds in 1950 and studied English at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge.

He first began working for the BBC in the 1970s and became a Newsnight presenter in 1989.

He has interviewed several leading political figures including every Prime Minister since Tony Blair (he interviewed Boris Johnson when he was mayor of London) and being grilled by Paxman became a rite of passage for careerist politicians.

Paxman appeared as a fictional version of himself in political comedy series The Thick of It, and has also appeared on Have I Got News For You, Room 101, The Great Celebrity Bake Off for SU2C, and The Last Leg.

This latest season of University Challenge will be the last with Paxman as host - he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2021 and earlier this year announced that he would step down as host of the show in 2023.

When is University Challenge 2022 on TV?

The 2022 series of University Challenge will begin airing on Monday 28 August at 8:30pm on BBC Two.

Episodes will be released at the same time weekly - there are 37 episodes in the season.

All episodes will be available to watch on BBC iPlayer after they are first broadcast. Episodes from the 2021/22 season of the series are available to watch on iPlayer now.

Which universities are on University Challenge 2022?

The first episode of the season will feature the University of Bristol and Durham University.

Episode two will see the Open University take on Newcastle University.

The universities and colleges taking part in future episodes have not yet been confirmed, but 28 teams will participate over the season.

Magdalen College, Oxford, Imperial College London, the University of Manchester have had the most success over the years, with four wins each.

When will Amol Rajan join University Challenge?

Amol Rajan is a journalist who studied English at Downing College, Cambridge and has been the BBC’s Media Editor since December 2016 and joined the Today programme as a presenter in 2021.

He was editor of The Independent from 2013-2016 - when the paper became online-only he stayed on as an editor-at-large.

Rajan will take over from Paxman as the host of University Challenge in Autumn 2023 for the next season of the show.