Ten years from now science in museums might be unrecognisable. The Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Manchester Museum are all planning major changes in the next few years. Add to this next summer's £30m opening of the Wellcome Trust's new public venue, and it all points to an exciting time for science exhibitions.
But what are we going to see in these new displays? Before museums can begin to answer that question, they have to unpick the many buzzwords and initiatives that come with communicating science.
Perhaps uniquely among the subjects covered by museums, communicating ideas and information about science has been strongly advocated by successive governments and other organisations for many years. The diverse and wide-ranging science community, in which museums play an active role, has developed a series of movements and initiatives.
For a long time, the most prominent of these was the 'public understanding of science'. This advocated putting lots of exciting science facts 'out there' in an effort to get people to learn to love science.
Now discredited as grossly top-down, it has been superseded by 'public engagement with science' (PES) and its attendant mot-du-jour 'dialogue'. Speak to curators about science and you can bet the conversation will be framed by public engagement.
But this participatory model is not without its own difficulties. Not least among them is the question, 'What does it actually mean?'
'I think that's a big question because "public engagement" is banded around as a term and actually everyone means something quite different,' says Caroline Hurren, the head of the public engagement development group at the Wellcome Trust.
Paul Bowers of the Natural History Museum is more blunt: 'Public, engagement, and science are three words that no one questions.' Bowers is the head of public offer for phase two of the Darwin Centre, the £65m project to house the museum's insects and plants, which will open in 2009.
His role means that he is someone who thinks about public engagement more than most. But surely the lack of questioning Bowers refers to can make life difficult for museums thinking about redevelopment and talking about public engagement.
The obvious meanings of 'public engagement with science' and 'dialogue' are that museum visitors should be able to comment on and influence policy decisions. But this can be problematic, as Hurren explains: 'Influencing policy is very difficult and few [organisations] do it… The public can end up feeling quite used if they think they're feeding into something, but actually it's just an exercise in dialogue.'
The Science Museum has first-hand experience of the difficulty of making this kind of dialogue 'real'. Heather Mayfield, the deputy head of the museum, says it has experimented with visitor comments on subjects displayed in the Antenna gallery, which features constantly updated exhibitions based on science news.
But the museum has had difficulty tying exhibitions into existing consultations. The varied nature of the comments also meant that they weren't useful for academic organisations such as the University of Sussex's Mass Observation Project. Now the museum favours giving visitors information about consultations that they can follow up at home.
So if canvassing opinion is a red herring, that still leaves the question 'what is public engagement?' Well, ask around and two themes stand out: the process of science and what might broadly be called 'science in the round' or 'cultural context'. Neither of these is particularly easy to explain.
Hurren thinks of the 'process of science' as 'how science works things out, how science thinks about things'. She argues that science is often portrayed in terms of its output - results - rather than how that output comes to be, and this is very often the case in museums.
Phase two of the Darwin Centre, which is partly funded by the Wellcome Trust, aims 'to show science as a human activity.' The building will combine laboratories with public spaces and visitors will be able to peer into the labs. But how will this show the human side of science?
'The lab's empty because they've all gone for coffee,' replies Bowers of the Natural History Museum. He's making the point that science is a job like any other; if you look into the lab, you won't necessarily see people in white coats beavering away with pipettes and test tubes.
There is some value in this, but it doesn't solve Hurren's whole problem. The science community comes to an official position over a period of many years and that debate mostly takes place in the wider scientific community, not in a single lab. Even experimentation and analysis are slow processes at the best of times, so visitors hoping to see heated discussions of the latest data might be disappointed.
Philosophers and sociologists have been arguing for centuries about what science is and how it works. So to say there is a wide range of opinions would be an understatement. 'Live science' in the form of viewing a lab may not be material for a one-off visit if your goal is to show 'the process of science'.
That's not to say that presenting science as a 'human activity' is undesirable. One thing many academics would agree on is that the output Hurren speaks of is created through interactions of science and society - that science is socially and culturally situated - which is another way of thinking about science as a human activity.
Ken Arnold, the head of public programmes at the Wellcome Trust, explains: 'Science doesn't stop with the science, you have to draw on the history, and it doesn't stop with the history, you have to contemplate interfaces with science and culture.'
In other words, the interaction of science and society is complex. Presenting what Arnold calls 'science in the round' can't be done in a neat, clean fashion. This poses some interesting questions for museum displays.
Nick Merriman, the director of the Manchester Museum, describes a recent project that explored gender in the mu-seum's natural history galleries. It showed that the majority of the exhibits were male, and that 19th-century taxidermists had displayed these most prominently.
'Science displays aren't truthful any more than humanities displays are truthful,' says Merriman. 'What we're displaying is a cultural construct with very particular historical contingencies.' To address this he is keen on incorporating multiple interpretations of exhibits into displays, but this is also problematic.
'There's a thousand ways of looking at things. Even if we work with a community, there's the issue of who selects the community representatives, how representative are they… who do you ask? You still have to edit… We have to put some things in and exclude others.'
In other words, the role of the museum as editor, and the perception of museums as authoritative institutions, are central to this cultural construct.
In order to highlight and explore science and society - to give an alternative to the presentation of 'fact' - museums will need to be transparent about what they have put on display, how it has been interpreted and why.
Of course, there is no single way to present science in museums. But given that public engagement is framing the majority of proposals, it is important to think about what is feasible. How can museums approach the complex task of working out which route to take?
Two things stand out. First is that it shouldn't be done in isolation - and yet there seems to be very little discussion of these issues between museums, or between museums and the academic science communities. Science studies academics in particular have been discussing questions of representation of science for years and could make valuable contributions.
Goéry Delacôte, the chief executive of the At-Bristol science centre, agrees that organisations need to come together to collaborate 'otherwise they are in danger of constantly reinventing the wheel'. He has ambitions to place At-Bristol at the creative centre of a hub of science centres that will share best practice and disseminate information, as well as sharing actual exhibits.
And last month the Wellcome Trust launched a new publication, Engaging Science: Thoughts, Deeds, Analysis and Action, and before that sponsored a multi-disciplinary science communication conference in April.
But this type of discussion needs to be extended. In the meantime, museums could be more proactive by networking and discussing with each other and those in the wider science communication community.
The second issue about presenting science is one of experimentation. Senior figures in the sector all emphasise the need to try out new ideas. But such experimentation requires risk-taking and money, a combination that doesn't always go hand-in-hand. Even when innovative projects are funded, additional money for tweaking and embedding the ideas isn't always forthcoming. Funders need to be more adventurous with the projects they back - and museums need to get over their fear of failure.
There is hard work ahead. Figuring out what contribution museums can realistically make to science communication is an important starting point. Presenting a more rounded view of science is a great aim, but will challenge conventional means of display and interpretation; and to meet those challenges museums themselves need to engage with others in the field.
Rachel Souhami is a freelance curator and lecturer in science communication at Imperial College London
But what are we going to see in these new displays? Before museums can begin to answer that question, they have to unpick the many buzzwords and initiatives that come with communicating science.
Perhaps uniquely among the subjects covered by museums, communicating ideas and information about science has been strongly advocated by successive governments and other organisations for many years. The diverse and wide-ranging science community, in which museums play an active role, has developed a series of movements and initiatives.
For a long time, the most prominent of these was the 'public understanding of science'. This advocated putting lots of exciting science facts 'out there' in an effort to get people to learn to love science.
Now discredited as grossly top-down, it has been superseded by 'public engagement with science' (PES) and its attendant mot-du-jour 'dialogue'. Speak to curators about science and you can bet the conversation will be framed by public engagement.
But this participatory model is not without its own difficulties. Not least among them is the question, 'What does it actually mean?'
'I think that's a big question because "public engagement" is banded around as a term and actually everyone means something quite different,' says Caroline Hurren, the head of the public engagement development group at the Wellcome Trust.
Paul Bowers of the Natural History Museum is more blunt: 'Public, engagement, and science are three words that no one questions.' Bowers is the head of public offer for phase two of the Darwin Centre, the £65m project to house the museum's insects and plants, which will open in 2009.
His role means that he is someone who thinks about public engagement more than most. But surely the lack of questioning Bowers refers to can make life difficult for museums thinking about redevelopment and talking about public engagement.
The obvious meanings of 'public engagement with science' and 'dialogue' are that museum visitors should be able to comment on and influence policy decisions. But this can be problematic, as Hurren explains: 'Influencing policy is very difficult and few [organisations] do it… The public can end up feeling quite used if they think they're feeding into something, but actually it's just an exercise in dialogue.'
The Science Museum has first-hand experience of the difficulty of making this kind of dialogue 'real'. Heather Mayfield, the deputy head of the museum, says it has experimented with visitor comments on subjects displayed in the Antenna gallery, which features constantly updated exhibitions based on science news.
But the museum has had difficulty tying exhibitions into existing consultations. The varied nature of the comments also meant that they weren't useful for academic organisations such as the University of Sussex's Mass Observation Project. Now the museum favours giving visitors information about consultations that they can follow up at home.
So if canvassing opinion is a red herring, that still leaves the question 'what is public engagement?' Well, ask around and two themes stand out: the process of science and what might broadly be called 'science in the round' or 'cultural context'. Neither of these is particularly easy to explain.
Hurren thinks of the 'process of science' as 'how science works things out, how science thinks about things'. She argues that science is often portrayed in terms of its output - results - rather than how that output comes to be, and this is very often the case in museums.
Phase two of the Darwin Centre, which is partly funded by the Wellcome Trust, aims 'to show science as a human activity.' The building will combine laboratories with public spaces and visitors will be able to peer into the labs. But how will this show the human side of science?
'The lab's empty because they've all gone for coffee,' replies Bowers of the Natural History Museum. He's making the point that science is a job like any other; if you look into the lab, you won't necessarily see people in white coats beavering away with pipettes and test tubes.
There is some value in this, but it doesn't solve Hurren's whole problem. The science community comes to an official position over a period of many years and that debate mostly takes place in the wider scientific community, not in a single lab. Even experimentation and analysis are slow processes at the best of times, so visitors hoping to see heated discussions of the latest data might be disappointed.
Philosophers and sociologists have been arguing for centuries about what science is and how it works. So to say there is a wide range of opinions would be an understatement. 'Live science' in the form of viewing a lab may not be material for a one-off visit if your goal is to show 'the process of science'.
That's not to say that presenting science as a 'human activity' is undesirable. One thing many academics would agree on is that the output Hurren speaks of is created through interactions of science and society - that science is socially and culturally situated - which is another way of thinking about science as a human activity.
Ken Arnold, the head of public programmes at the Wellcome Trust, explains: 'Science doesn't stop with the science, you have to draw on the history, and it doesn't stop with the history, you have to contemplate interfaces with science and culture.'
In other words, the interaction of science and society is complex. Presenting what Arnold calls 'science in the round' can't be done in a neat, clean fashion. This poses some interesting questions for museum displays.
Nick Merriman, the director of the Manchester Museum, describes a recent project that explored gender in the mu-seum's natural history galleries. It showed that the majority of the exhibits were male, and that 19th-century taxidermists had displayed these most prominently.
'Science displays aren't truthful any more than humanities displays are truthful,' says Merriman. 'What we're displaying is a cultural construct with very particular historical contingencies.' To address this he is keen on incorporating multiple interpretations of exhibits into displays, but this is also problematic.
'There's a thousand ways of looking at things. Even if we work with a community, there's the issue of who selects the community representatives, how representative are they… who do you ask? You still have to edit… We have to put some things in and exclude others.'
In other words, the role of the museum as editor, and the perception of museums as authoritative institutions, are central to this cultural construct.
In order to highlight and explore science and society - to give an alternative to the presentation of 'fact' - museums will need to be transparent about what they have put on display, how it has been interpreted and why.
Of course, there is no single way to present science in museums. But given that public engagement is framing the majority of proposals, it is important to think about what is feasible. How can museums approach the complex task of working out which route to take?
Two things stand out. First is that it shouldn't be done in isolation - and yet there seems to be very little discussion of these issues between museums, or between museums and the academic science communities. Science studies academics in particular have been discussing questions of representation of science for years and could make valuable contributions.
Goéry Delacôte, the chief executive of the At-Bristol science centre, agrees that organisations need to come together to collaborate 'otherwise they are in danger of constantly reinventing the wheel'. He has ambitions to place At-Bristol at the creative centre of a hub of science centres that will share best practice and disseminate information, as well as sharing actual exhibits.
And last month the Wellcome Trust launched a new publication, Engaging Science: Thoughts, Deeds, Analysis and Action, and before that sponsored a multi-disciplinary science communication conference in April.
But this type of discussion needs to be extended. In the meantime, museums could be more proactive by networking and discussing with each other and those in the wider science communication community.
The second issue about presenting science is one of experimentation. Senior figures in the sector all emphasise the need to try out new ideas. But such experimentation requires risk-taking and money, a combination that doesn't always go hand-in-hand. Even when innovative projects are funded, additional money for tweaking and embedding the ideas isn't always forthcoming. Funders need to be more adventurous with the projects they back - and museums need to get over their fear of failure.
There is hard work ahead. Figuring out what contribution museums can realistically make to science communication is an important starting point. Presenting a more rounded view of science is a great aim, but will challenge conventional means of display and interpretation; and to meet those challenges museums themselves need to engage with others in the field.
Rachel Souhami is a freelance curator and lecturer in science communication at Imperial College London
