Pandor appoints new CSIR board

Engineering News reports that, as she welcomed the incoming board of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Science and Technology Minister Naledi Pandor said the country's development of groundbreaking innovations and technology developments in many fields, ranging from battery technologies, pharmaceuticals and new materials, to planning tools and systems, could be traced back to the CSIR.

Speaking at the inaugural CSIR board meeting in Pretoria, Pandor said that the CSIR "has gone from strength-to-strength, and is still, as it was in the 1950s, the biggest and best-resourced science laboratory complex in the country." The Minister said she was looking forward to the CSIR maintaining this proud legacy. Pandor recently appointed the CSIR board in terms of the Scientific Research Council Act of 1988. The board's term of office is three years.

CSIR board members are professors Francis Petersen, who will be the interim chairperson, Eugene Cloete, Tebello Nyokong, Mike Wingfield; Dr Philip Hugh Goyns, Ghandi Badela, Phillip Benadé, McLean Sibanda, Bajabulile 'Swazi' Tshabalala and Malebo Mabitje-Thompson. According to Engineering News, Petersen, Wingfield, Sibanda and Benadé were reappointed to ensure continuity.

Read the full article on www.engineeringnews.co.za.