EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

—  The panorama of British science centres is described; their missions, their clients, their impact, their revenues and expenditures and their relationships with schools and universities.

—  A comparison is established with the US situation.

—  One of the major differences between the US and UK resides in the level of public funding to incentivise science centres to adapt, to modernise, to increase their impact, to know better about their best practice and to work more in a networking mode, with other science centres, schools and after-school organisations.

—  The lack of an appropriate level of public funding in the UK is a long-term threat to the quality of science learning and teaching at a national level. This must be addressed in order to stop the decline of science learning enrolment in British schools, to counter the development of a creationism anti-science movement in the UK and to aid the facilitation of a science based modernisation of the British economy.

1.  INTRODUCTION

  1.1  I have 17 years experience in science centres; from 1991-2005 at the helm of the Exploratorium in San Francisco (voted in 2005 by the profession as the best science centre in the world—this recognition I believe to be correlated to the Exploratorium having obtained the most peer review public funding in the US). I am presently the Chief Executive of At-Bristol, a Millennium science centre, located in Bristol, UK. I am therefore happy to express my views about UK central government funding or, more precisely, the lack-of, and its implication for the UK science centre movement and the impeded betterment of school science teaching and learning, as well as British public engagement in science and societies questions.

2.  SCIENCE CENTRES FACTS AND FIGURES: A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE UK & US

  2.1  The worldwide science centre movement is now important and is growing. The Association of Science and Technology Centres (ASTC), the largest professional organisation of science centres in the world has more than 500 members, 80% in the US. 200 of these answered the last ASTC survey (2006) wherefrom we will extract our statistics. Ecsite-uk (the UK Network of Science Centres and Museums) has close to 80 members and is the best organised national chapter of Ecsite (the European organisation of science centres).

  2.2  Some simple statistics will shed light on the importance of science centres and their funding. The median building size of a science centre is 7,000 m2 with an average of 2,500 m2 of exhibits and another 500 m2 of temporary exhibition space. A large proportion of science centres, 53% will, between 2007-09, be expanding and renovating their facilities and renewing their exhibits.

  2.3  Most science centres offer resources for learning such as classes, demonstrations, school field trips, outreach programmes, teacher workshops and even sleep-overs (50%) and kits for schools (40%). After-school programs, programs for home-schooled children and for youth employment are offered by more than 50%. One-third offer programs for seniors.

  2.4  Using data from the ASTC survey (US science centres and museums in the survey totaling 43 million visitors per annum), one can extrapolate a 90 million per annum total visitorship to science centres in the US. The total visitorship of the full membership of Ecsite-uk is in the order of 17 million per annum (extrapolated from a 2007 Ecsite-uk survey of 25 centres visited by 11 million people in 2006.)

  2.5  Science centres receive a mix of operating revenue sources: earned income, public funding and private donations. In addition, some have endowments and/or may receive in-kind donations. In the US, earned income and endowment return total approximately 50% of the revenues. Public funds and private funds roughly contribute at the same level—25% each to the other 50% of the revenues. 54% of the total expenditure is staffing costs.

  2.6  In the UK, a wave of new science centres opened at the turn of the Millennium with a cumulated investment of c. £500 million, none of which had an endowment and two have had to close. Some are low in science content which allows them to survive using, for instance, exhibition space for rent. Most are struggling.

3.  AT-BRISTOL: AN EXAMPLE OF A MILLENNIUM SCIENCE CENTRE

  3.1  At-Bristol is strategically organised on a 3-prong approach: exhibitions, education and continuing professional development of teachers in science. To date (2007), At-Bristol is the only science centre in the UK which incorporates a Science Learning Centre offering high quality continuing professional development for everyone involved in the teaching of science in primary and secondary schools and Further Education colleges in the South West. The Science Learning Centre closely associates the University of Bristol and the University of Plymouth within its own internal management. This combination has led to innovations such as the design of portable interactive exhibits for schools, which may have an important impact in the learning of science in schools, museums and also on continued professional development. In order to be able to create these new portables and to test them, At-Bristol requires grant money. It also has to regularly refresh its offering to the public. Finally, it wants to become a provider of services to other science centres across the UK. All this requires investment. Private funders and Foundations are providing At-Bristol with some grants but government money, through the appropriate channels and national monitoring, is essential to align these approaches to a national policy.

  3.2  Opened in 2000, At-Bristol had to undergo a severe reorganisation in April 2007 closing two of its three attractions to reduce an unsustainable fundraising gap of £1.5 million per annum. The 3-prong approach is of course maintained. In its new reduced configuration the revenue fundraising gap is reduced to only £0.35 million. Staffing expenses of £2 million will be 46% of £4.3 million, the total new expenditure per annum. Between 2000-07, At-Bristol was able to bridge the fundraising gap of £1.5 million through a series of one-off solutions accessing a number of competitive grant sources, some government funding and a more generous gift aid scheme. All these sources are either no longer available or have been substantially reduced.

4.  IMPACT OF SCIENCE CENTRES

  4.1  Impact studies have shown that science centres can make a significant difference. Visitors interviewed at the end of their (on average three hours long) visits or six months after, can recall significant moments of their visits and the meaning attached to performing many interactive sequences either with exhibits or with personnel on the floor. A frequent declaration is that, had they been exposed to such a question-driven and exploration-focused experience whilst at school, they would have embraced science with interest. The measurement of impact shows that a prepared visit (through the website, pre-briefing or reading questionnaires) leads to an even more significant outcome. Visitors are also keen to participate in debates and to vote on diverse contemporary science and societies issues. (At-Bristol has developed a very successful Citizen Science programme with the help of the Wellcome Trust.) Visitors highly trust the messages proposed by science centres. A good example of using this high trust level is the domain of nanotechnologies where public fear about the danger of nanoparticles seems to be growing. To accompany the development of the nanotechnology initiatives, the National Science Foundation recently (in 2005) awarded the San Francisco Exploratorium, the Minnesota Science Centre and the Science Museum of Boston a $20 million grant to help the country (US) understand the coming of nanotechnology initiatives and to help citizens to participate in the debate. 25 other science centres are going to be associated with this very important initiative.

  4.2  The demography of visitors to science centres shows a predominantly family structure—mostly educated and with an above average disposable income. To change this demography requires either free admission days to the science centres or even more of a systematic outreach effort to schools and community based organisations (CBO's) (particularly in remote and/or underserved areas). This of course requires the correct portable equipment and trained staff together with a well-organised collaboration with schools and CBOs. Funding is necessary to reach out to those undeserved and also rural audiences.

  4.3  It is worth noting that the Exploratorium, in partnership with the University of California in Santa Cruz, won a $10 million grant in 2001 to help 50 US science centres to develop their collaborations with local schools. To carry out the research into what did and didn't work in these collaborations, the american graduate students were trained at King's College Graduate School of Education in London, one of the best science education research organisations in the world. This is also a good example of partnerships between science centres and Universities.

  4.4  The impact of science centres has to be measured in reference to their goals which are to educate, entertain and empower their users. Science centres should be learning platforms fostering what we call the global learning agenda—a seamless relation between learning in informal settings including the home, in schools, and in after-school environments. The seamless approach can only be achieved if there is a willingness among those many institutions to share resources, best practices and even staff, ie where they decide to operate as networks from within each domain (informal network) or across different institutions like science centres and schools. It is therefore justifiable for the government to consider fostering alliances within and between the informal sector, the school system and the after-school movement. Each segment of the learning engagement (including through the mass media) is essential to the quality of the global learning, and government money should encourage the internal or external strategic alliances for the benefit of a more multidimensional learning offer open to the young generation, their families and the population at large for life-long learning.

  4.5  Therefore, everyone could benefit from what science centres are particularly good at: providing an experiential approach to unfamiliar concepts in familiar context, helping visitors generate their own questions in a collective exploratory and playful manner, learning to think informally (which complement the formal learning in schools) and at fostering debate on contemporary questions about science in society, linking topics of global relevance and of local impacts. Some examples of those questions are: the understanding of the genome revolution (the Wellcome Trust has provided At-Bristol with £1.5 million to develop a travelling exhibition "Inside DNA—the genomic revolution" opening in 2008 (Ecsite-uk will help with the educational component)), creating a carbon neutral society (Stern report, conclusion of the recent G8 Heiligendamm summit), preserving clean water and clean air resources and what it will require from every citizen.

  4.6  More generally, science centres in the UK are accomplishing what Tony Travers of the London School of Economics concluded in his recent report: Museums and galleries are "... fulfilling their original [intended] functions, while also acting as institutions of learning, mass tourist attractions and civic partners".

  4.7  A recent threat on public engagement in science is the fast growing creationism movement (in the US, one out of two Americans believe the world was created as is and there has been no evolution). This is exemplified by a new (April 2007) $25 million facility in Kentucky, the Creation Museum. Similar public activities also exist in the UK in total denial of any scientific evidence to which money appears to be flowing from private sources. The correct way to counter such dangerous non-sense presentations (eg dinosaurs and humans living together!) is to make sure that all members of the Ecsite-uk membership are delivering an excellent job and get enough resources to do so.

5.  INVESTING IN OUR FUTURE

  5.1  The total operational expenditure of science centres in the US is roughly $1 billion per annum. Spending public money at the level of 7% of this amount on consolidation, renovation, renewal, assessment and research is a very reasonable number. If you look at the US congress appropriated funds given to the National Science Foundation, National Institute of Health, Department of Energy, and NASA for informal science education, this amounts to a total of $70 million per annum which just corresponds to the 7% of the gross expenditure.

  5.2  The total level of expenditure of Ecsite-UK membership is £250 million per annum. To operate at the same level as the US, UK government would have to spend approximately £17.5 million per annum which would represent only a 5% increase of the £320 million per annum distributed by DCMS to all museums and galleries in the UK (and even a smaller percentage if one adds the £400 million coming from The Arts Council).

  5.3  Today, through the DTI, the Government's budget to incentivise science centres in the UK is not £17.5 million but £0.35 million per annum. This of course does not include the regularly sponsored UK national museums on science (£30 million) or natural history (£50 million), which receive their budget as an entitlement (the magnitude of which is unfortunately under threat of shrinking) in a situation similar to the Smithsonian budget in the US. This also does not recognise the help given by Local Authorities and the Regional Development Agencies in some regions of UK, to be compared with non-federal government help in the US. The result is that 85% of the revenues of UK science centres are relatively stable but the complement of 15% is more problematic.

  5.4  More money from the already mentioned $70 million per annum is spent in the US on initial or extended transformations of science centres. It is financed through a combination of locally raised private contributions (capital campaigns) and city's, district's or the State's public money contributions. In the UK it would correspond to private, Local Authority and Regional Development Agency funds. Sometimes it can also be achieved through what is still an active process in the US called the "pork barrel", a mechanism of piggybacking on federal appropriation which has nothing to do with the domain. There is certainly no point in the UK importing such a contested US approach.

6.  RECOMMENDATIONS

  6.1  In the UK there is a need for a serious reconsideration of the public policy on science centres leading to an increase of regular public funding (amount and distribution mechanism) to focus on stablisation, development, networking, assessment and research—in one word to incentivise all the science centres and museums across the country. This should include the science centres in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales which have, for the moment, a much welcomed policy of funding the financial needs of their science centres once there has been an agreement about their goals.

  6.2  The present UK level of permanent public funding of science centres and museums should be preserved for a few science museums and centres which already receive them but, as in the US, the new UK funds, which we are advocating, should not be an entitlement to specific institutions which makes a national policy less easy to monitor. They should be administrated through a peer review process with the setting up of guidelines and appropriate advisory council including foreign experts. The Royal Society could very well host and administer such a fund. Alternatively the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Medical Research Council, who are used to practicing this kind of grant based funding approach, could also manage those public funds.

  6.3  Public money is strategically important to make sure that government's goal of fostering the new knowledge society is efficiently achieved. Of course this could be complemented by private donations which do exist in the UK (eg the Wellcome Trust) but are of much less amplitude on average than in the US. The result would be a consolidation of the more volatile 15% part of the revenues, a possible increase in and a long-term healthy development policy for the sector.

  6.4  The present DTI funds for incentives to science centres and museums in the UK are too low, almost by two orders of magnitude. A two-digit sum expressed in millions of pounds is needed each year for the UK at large (certainly not less than £10 million).

  6.5  This measure would have a very significant role, first to stabilize the profession but more importantly to improve the quality and the impact of the service given by all science centres to the UK population for science learning—in and out of schools, and to foster healthy public engagement on scientific matters. This improvement should be monitored on a regular basis. These two goals are key to the good functioning of a modern democracy and the successful modernisation of the country, a central element of the government's agenda. In addition, it will provide a model for other countries to rethink their own approach and possibly benefit from best practices and resources available from the UK.

June 2007