A.  INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT

  1.  Around the world, Science and Discovery Centres (SDCs) make a real and positive contribution to informal science education. They are particularly effective when they complement formal science education by providing structured learning experiences that have been tailored to meet the specific requirements of formal science curricula. There is a wealth of literature documenting the educational value of SDCs; and I know that ECSITE-UK is providing relevant references as part of its submission to the Inquiry.

  2.  Internationally, SDCs do not typically meet all—or even most—of the costs of their educational services at the point of delivery. More specifically, I know of no SDC—in Australasia, Europe or North America—that meets 100% of the cost of its educational services sustainably from fees to educational clients. Rather, all SDCs subsidise these services—typically (though not exclusively) through operating grants from local, regional or national governments.

B.  NATIONAL CONTEXT

  1.  The UK Science and Discovery Centre Network (UKSDCN) is a unique—and uniquely strong—national asset. Thanks to the major capital investments of the 1990s, the vast majority of the UK population lives within an easy day's journey of an SDC; rightly resourced and coordinated, therefore, UKSDCN is capable of making substantive contributions to science education and public engagement with science nationally.

  2.  Relative to SDCs in other parts of Europe and North America, UKSDCN is energetic, entrepreneurial and cost-effective: on average, UKSDCN members generate a greater proportion of their running costs from visitor admission and other forms of earned income than do SDCs in other parts of the European Union.

  3.  The initial capital costs of the UKSDCN were largely met in the 1990s—not least, through major investment on the part of the National Lottery. Ongoing capital costs of renewal have been addressed by a number of agencies—including the National Lottery and the Welcome Trust (the ReDiscover Fund of the early 2000s). However, the operating cost issues associated with UKSDCN have never been adequately resolved nationally, and they remain the key challenge facing the sector today, seven years after the opening of the Millennium SDCs.

  4.  Some constructive steps have been taken to resolve the issue of operating cost support at the regional level in the UK. From as far back as the 1980s, the Welsh Office (now, the Welsh Assembly) has provided annual operating cost support to Techniquest in Cardiff; and more recently, an important initiative has been undertaken by the Scottish Parliament in support of the operating costs of the UKSDCN in Scotland. I am not up to date on (and cannot therefore comment upon) the current situation in Northern Ireland.

  5.  However, the situation in England—where the great majority of the UK SDCs are located—remains largely unresolved. Over the past few years, the Office of Science and Technology has offered grants in support of operating costs to a small number of English SDCs. However, the sums of money available have been very modest indeed. As a result, only a small number of SDCs have received anything at all; and even those that have received grants have still found the support utterly inadequate to meet their needs—witness the highly regrettable decision by At-Bristol to close one of its key educational attractions (Wildwalk) following the most recent round of OST grants.

  6.  Currently, it would appear to be the contingencies of the arrangements for devolved government across the UK that chiefly determine whether or not individual SDCs receive government grant in aid of their educational work. This is anomalous and unfair; even more seriously, from the point of view of the national interest, it is grossly inefficient. Why are SDCs judged to deserve operating cost support in Wales and Scotland, but not (on the whole) in England? Do English schools offer a science education that is so manifestly superior to that of schools in Wales and Scotland that the former simply have no need of the services of their local SDCs?

  7.  More generally, what possible sense does it make for the country to invest heavily in the creation of SDCs, and then to starve them of the operating funds they need in order to do their job? Currently, the educational impact of the UKSDCN—at least in England—is only a fraction of what it could and should be, owing to the lack of adequate resources to fund educational work on the ground; and this, at a time when the UK needs to be developing and strengthening its knowledge-based economy in order to compete internationally.

C.  CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

  1.  What the UKSDCN needs now is what the UKSDCN has always needed: adequate year-on-year funding in support of its educational work.

  2.  What would constitute adequate year-on-year funding support for an SDC? Unfortunately, there is no single, simple answer to this question. In my experience, British SDCs are generally energetic and entrepreneurial; and in my judgment, they should be incentivised to remain so. However, across the country SDCs have been set up on a great variety of different models and they possess a great variety of assets. Depending on where it is and what assets it possesses, an individual SDC may be able to generate a smaller or a greater fraction of its total running costs from its own activities. Some measure of assessment and evaluation is therefore required in order to determine appropriate levels of grant aid across the sector.

  3.  Key factors that should be born in mind in assessing grant aid are as follows:

—  Overall size of SDC.

—  Total visitor numbers.

—  Total educational visitor numbers.

—  Quality and quantity of science-related exhibitions.

—  Quality and quantity of science-related educational services, taking account of specialist educational staff, specialist educational programs, and the quality and quantity of relationships between the SDC and formal science educators in its community.

  4.  As a rough guide, I would expect a typical SDC that is providing high quality informal science education in its region to require a minimum of 20% and a maximum of 50% support of its total operating costs (depending, of course, on the mix of other earned income that may be available). A small grant amounting to only a few percentage points of total operating costs will not be adequate; but a very large grant amounting to most or all of total operating costs will not be needed.

  5.  With these guidelines in mind, I call upon the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology to urge the Government in Westminster, working as necessary with the devolved governments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, to set aside adequate recurrent funding to support the work of all UKSDCN members that meet agreed standards of educational performance.

June 2007