The diversity of the people at the Forschungszentrum Jülich
For a few months now, Alissa Aarts, Antonia Illich and Sascha Pust have been creating the podcast ‘Begegnungen am Zentrum’, in which they interview different people at the research centre. These sometimes very personal conversations provide insights into the lives of people at the research centre with very different stories. The podcast offers exciting insights into the stories of people at the research centre. We interviewed Sascha Pust about this.
Hello Sascha Pust, can you briefly say a few words about yourself?
I am Sascha Pust, Secretary of the Scientific and Technical Council (WTR), and I have been managing the WTR since 2012. I am an electrochemist by training and joined the research center as a post-doc in 2009.
Because of your position, you probably have a lot of contact with a lot of people?
Yes, especially all over the Center. Probably more than many others here, as the WTR is made up of the entire scientific part of the Center. However, we also have a lot of contact with the non-scientific organizational units, as there are cross-networking points there that we need.
How did the podcast come about?
Antonia [Illich] and I both love listening to podcasts and we've always talked about them a lot. About a year ago, we had the idea that we knew so many great people on campus and it would be really cool to put it into a format like this. Shortly afterwards, Antonia approached Alissa [Aarts], who I hadn't even met before. We got started as a group of three and thought about what the project should look like. After a quarter of a year, we had a concept and our equipment.
Did you already have podcast experience?
No, we got ourselves the technology and got a lot of advice from Anne Korfmacher [who is also interviewed in the first podcast]. We started from scratch, but fortunately podcasts are a very accessible medium.
What is your motivation for doing the podcast?
The great center and the great people here. When we started to find exciting people, we quickly collected a lot of names of potential guests. That gave us a lot of momentum, as we realized that there are so many people among the 7,000 people at the center with whom we could talk about topics other than work. If I want to talk to Anne Korfmacher about podcasts or Frank Willhelm-Mauch about his children with disabilities, these are things that don't play a role in everyday working life at first, but then somehow they do, because people bring their own stories with them in a work context. The conversations are sometimes incredibly touching, as you're sitting at a table with people who really reveal very personal details in such a public format. That's why I personally gain so much from these conversations, beyond the reach of the podcast.
What makes the research center special?
When you have 7,000 people in one place, you have the entire spectrum of personalities and everything the world has to offer in one microcosm. It's basically a small city here. As diverse as the center is, that's how diverse we try to portray it in our talks. That's a real added value and a feature of the research center, and I find that really exciting. The research center is a great place to be and to work, but also to talk to people with whom you would otherwise probably never find a personal connection.
Are English podcasts planned?
Yes, if we have English-speaking guests, we would also conduct the conversation in English to English. We think this is only appropriate given the international nature of the center. We had thought about bringing in native speaker support if necessary.