March 11, 2009

Heading to China

Posted by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang at 11:32 PM

One of the most interesting parts of the Signtific project for me has been the opportunity to do interviews and workshops with scientists around the world. Last year was a particularly active year, with trips to Malaysia, South Africa, Hungary, Singapore, Canada, Austria, England, and several places in the U.S. It's a particularly cool project that in the span of a few months sends you to the banks of the Danube, the Straits of Malacca, and drops you in the company of future Nobel laureates.

workshop at the Perimeter Institute, Waterloo, Canada; via flickr

In a couple weeks I'm heading to China, to do some interviews and give talks in Beijing and Shanghai. Of course, anyone who's followed trends in science policy in the last few years knows that China has embarked on some amazingly ambitious programs to build a world-class (or even world-dominating) scientific community. I'm looking forward to seeing it for myself. If anybody has suggestions about really extraordinary places to go-- research labs, field sites, etc.-- please feel free to let me know at apang at iftf dot org.