CSIRO launches Mandarin podcasts

Launched today at CSIRO Discovery Centre on Canberra’s Black Mountain, the podcast series currently features interviews with five Mandarin-speaking CSIRO scientists.

Attending the launch were his Excellency Mr Zhang Junsai, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China, and Mr Feng Xuan, the S&T Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy.

“CSIRO has enjoyed a very long history of collaborating with China,” CSIRO’s Deputy Chief Executive Mike Whelan said at the launch.

“The podcast series celebrates the hard work that a number of our Mandarin speaking scientists have done in bringing the two countries together.”

CSIRO currently employs more than 6500 staff, of whom around 400 speak a Chinese dialect, or were born in China.

The organisation has enjoyed 32 years of collaboration with China, with the number of joint publications between CSIRO and Chinese collaborators increasing at a rate of more than 20 per cent per annum over the past three years.

China currently is the third largest collaborator, after the U.S. and U.K., in terms of joint publications with the CSIRO. In terms of the number of joint activities, China is now ranked second after USA.

The CSIRO hopes the podcast series will encourage more Chinese students to study in Australia, more scientists to collaborate with Australia and CSIRO in particular.

The Mandarin podcast will be part of CSIROpod at CSIRO’s Web site and also will be available on CD.

Interviewees currently include: Dr Lu Zhang of CSIRO Land & Water; Dr Harry Wu of the Forestry/Plant Industry; Dr Yonglin Ren of CSIRO Entomology; Dr Ming-Bo Wang of CSIRO Plant Industry; and Dr Xuemei Bai of CSIRO Sustainable Ecology.

chinacsiroresearchersstrategy