A man discusses his thoughts on mental health: “The way our society is structured,” he says, “means that if your behaviour doesn’t fit into a certain ideal, you can be deemed mentally ill.” He describes his ideas of an ideal “asylum” – its look, staffing and ethos.
The interviewee’s thoughts formed part of the audioguide accompanying Bedlam: the Asylum and Beyond, a recent exhibition at London’s Wellcome Collection (the show closed in January) that explored the idea of the mental asylum. Core Arts, which supports mental health service users to develop their creativity, had approached volunteers to provide personal stories to complement the show’s exhibits, which include artistic work and official medical documentation.
“In a sense, everybody is an expert in their own experience,” says James Peto, the head of public programmes at the Wellcome Collection. “And everyone’s experience of their health is unique. I prefer that openness to a singular expertise, which is sometimes the case with museum interpretation.”
The notion of expertise has been questioned of late, whether it is US president Donald Trump’s ambiguous attitude to climate science or UK environment secretary Michael Gove’s claim in 2016 that “people in this country have had enough of experts”. Though Gove was speaking about economists, his comments raised questions on science museums’ role in communicating expertise and evidence-based research.
Linda Conlon, the chief executive of Newcastle’s Centre for Life, said in a speech last September that globalisation would cause “major shifts in demographics and therefore increasingly diverse audiences are going to impact more and more”. So how can these new audiences, who are potentially unfamiliar or even hostile, be reached? From the Science Museum Group’s (SMG) involvement in Tomorrow’s World – the BBC’s year-long science and technology season that launched in May – to National Museums Scotland’s new science and technology galleries, which opened last year, science museum professionals are employing a host of approaches to boost public engagement and widen participation.
Ian Blatchford, the chief executive and director of SMG, says science museums “should be undaunted by the current mood” and can help build trust.
“Rather than feeling defeated we should see the opportunity to provide some help,” he says. “Trust in the public domain, including in the media and politicians, has been in decline for some time. But trust in museums is higher than ever. So in a stormy environment we have weirdly developed a rather special role.”
Museums must do this independently, Blatchford says, steering their own path and presenting facts in an unbiased way. He says the Science Museum had at one point come under pressure from some parts of government to do an exhibition on fracking, but decided against it. The controversial practice, using water to fracture rock for fossil fuel extraction, has attracted opposition from some British environmental groups.
“I’ve decided against doing things that feel too propagandist,” Blatchford says. “I thought to myself, ‘Is the Science Museum presenting a preachy data-rich story on fracking actually going to help very much?’”
The Science Museum’s Our Lives in Data exhibition (until 24 September) explores the idea of big data, the large datasets available in the digital age. Blatchford says that in seeking economic backing for the show, the museum moved away from sponsorship talks with big IT and computer firms. “They asked us to do an evangelical promotion of the glories of big data.”

He says the museum’s research didn’t show the public taking a partisan stance on the topic, rather that they didn’t know what it was. “We need to show considerable nerve in sticking to that evidence and not becoming a propagandist for innovation.”
The Tomorrow’s World partnership will see a digital hub, podcasts and events attempt to capture new audiences.
“We are doing audience research, along with the BBC, on every stage of our project to see its impact,” says Blatchford. “We also do audience assessments on new exhibitions and galleries to see how much science visitors have taken in and if it has shifted perceptions. We do have a pretty reliable sense of what has and hasn’t worked.”
Everyday context
Peto says science museums need to think critically about how expertise is discussed and use new ways to reach audiences who might not ordinarily visit. “We do well in the 18-30 bracket, especially for a science museum, which tends to have an older or school-age audience. The Wellcome Collection gets a lot of students and young people visiting, which is great because it can be a good age for critical reflection.”
‘We may be a neutral space but we should present the arguments of our colleagues in the scientific community’
The Wellcome Collection’s 2012 show Brains: The Mind as Matter, which ran at Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry the following year and featured a silver brain cast and an ancient Egyptian’s cerebrum, attracted a new family audience by touring outside of London.
“They added some local content and worked with local scientists and collections, so it was a slightly different exhibition,” says Peto. “It had 100,000 visitors in London and an additional 100,000 in Manchester. It was a different kind of audience, and through a straightforward partnership.”
In terms of engagement, relating the sometimes abstract ideas of science to people’s everyday lives is a must, says Hannah Crowdy, the interpretation manager at National Museums Northern Ireland, describing Ulster Museum’s Elements exhibition, which links chemical elements to objects sourced from different disciplines.
“So although it’s a science exhibition, in the case of colour, there’s beautiful glass and ceramics from our fine art collection,” says Crowdy. “People might visit and think it’s a science exhibition, or they might focus on the art or archaeology we’ve included in the displays that hopefully give the visitors another way in.”
Crowdy says that the touring version of the show can get objects out of local museums’ collections that relate to the theme but that had not previously been thought of as being suitable for a science display. Collections should be used as a starting point, she adds, along with presenting the familiar with an unfamiliar slant to capture people’s interest.
Putting the audience first
What is clear is that despite the changing political climate, many museums still see themselves neither representing sponsors nor governments, but primarily catering to the needs of their audiences. But where does this leave issues such as evolution and cli- mate change, which are topics that are vulnerable to politicisation?
“We may be a neutral, trusted space but there is no doubt that we should present the arguments of our colleagues in the scientific community,” says Sam Alberti, the keeper of science and technology at National Museums Scotland (NMS). Its six science and technology galleries use games, interactive exhibits as well as displays to explore developments such as Dolly the sheep and the large electron-positron collider at Cern.
“We present these exhibits in a way that stimulates our visitors to think for them- selves,” says Alberti. “We should present evidence for evolution by natural selection and humankind’s impact on the environment. But we should calmly and not sensationally acknowledge that there are other interpretations of these narratives.”
Ian Brunswick, the head of programming at the Science Gallery, Dublin, thinks science museums should not “realistically be expected to compensate for insufficient formal education or declining public awareness of science”. With controversial scientific issues in particular, research has shown that an educational approach might not be the answer and may entrench people’s opinions rather than change them.

“Engaging people’s critical faculty, exposing them to surprising counterpoints, giving them a voice and awakening a curiosity they didn’t know they had are all endeav- ours that science museums are well suited to,” Brunswick says.
Cross-disciplinary institutions that push a more ambivalent, less didactic view of science might give a richer experience to audiences, he adds – good news for London’s new Science Gallery, which will have a pro- gramme combining art, science and technology when it opens in 2018.
“Design museums and art galleries are delving into science and technology, and attracting more adult audiences,” Brunswick says. “This is probably because they engage with controversy, social questions and aesthetics in a way that is less overtly educational.”
Whether science museums didactically educate visitors on what is right and wrong, or use ambiguities around human knowledge to engage them collaboratively, their importance will not diminish if public trust in them continues to be high. The question then is what museums do with that trust and who it ultimately serves – science, the public or the wider economy.
The programme was established for the society’s 350th anniversary in 2010, with 149 partner institutions and more than 1,500 events. Partners included Bromley Museum, which celebrated its collection of artefacts that once belonged to naturalist John Lubbock by introducing a beehive and running workshops on bees and honey.
“A lot of our activity happens in London, but this project is a good way of engaging non-London areas with science,” says David Chapman, the assistant public engagement manager at the Royal Society. “The UK is lucky because it has a rich history of scientific development across all disciplines.”
The grants are fairly modest, says Chapman, with 15 schemes winning in 2017,including Berwick Museum & Art Gallery’s exhibition Bright Lights in the Borders (until 30 September), which celebrates five eminent local scientists such as the polymath and astronomer Mary Somerville.
“We fund small museums because the impact of the grant can be bigger in those than in a national museum, plus they tend to have a better sense of community and place,” Chapman adds. “They are better able to reach local people too.”
Activities funded through the programme have included talks, stargazing events and taking specimens from a museum into an old people’s home.
“Science can be seen by people as something that’s not for them or something that is done by someone else in another place, but by bringing it to their doorstep it hopefully gets them to see it in a more familiar light,” Chapman says.
“We have found that people are interested in the history of their local area. And if that’s something they are already interested in, we can highlight science within that.”
“The simple answer is to keep track of where the big money is being spent in scientific developments, but also to be acutely aware of any heated public debates,” concludes Blatchford.
Rob Sharp is a freelance journalist.
Ian Blatchford is among the speakers at a session about science communication at the Museums Association Conference, 16-18 November, Manchester
www.museumsassociation.org/conference
The interviewee’s thoughts formed part of the audioguide accompanying Bedlam: the Asylum and Beyond, a recent exhibition at London’s Wellcome Collection (the show closed in January) that explored the idea of the mental asylum. Core Arts, which supports mental health service users to develop their creativity, had approached volunteers to provide personal stories to complement the show’s exhibits, which include artistic work and official medical documentation.
“In a sense, everybody is an expert in their own experience,” says James Peto, the head of public programmes at the Wellcome Collection. “And everyone’s experience of their health is unique. I prefer that openness to a singular expertise, which is sometimes the case with museum interpretation.”
The notion of expertise has been questioned of late, whether it is US president Donald Trump’s ambiguous attitude to climate science or UK environment secretary Michael Gove’s claim in 2016 that “people in this country have had enough of experts”. Though Gove was speaking about economists, his comments raised questions on science museums’ role in communicating expertise and evidence-based research.
Linda Conlon, the chief executive of Newcastle’s Centre for Life, said in a speech last September that globalisation would cause “major shifts in demographics and therefore increasingly diverse audiences are going to impact more and more”. So how can these new audiences, who are potentially unfamiliar or even hostile, be reached? From the Science Museum Group’s (SMG) involvement in Tomorrow’s World – the BBC’s year-long science and technology season that launched in May – to National Museums Scotland’s new science and technology galleries, which opened last year, science museum professionals are employing a host of approaches to boost public engagement and widen participation.
Ian Blatchford, the chief executive and director of SMG, says science museums “should be undaunted by the current mood” and can help build trust.
“Rather than feeling defeated we should see the opportunity to provide some help,” he says. “Trust in the public domain, including in the media and politicians, has been in decline for some time. But trust in museums is higher than ever. So in a stormy environment we have weirdly developed a rather special role.”
Museums must do this independently, Blatchford says, steering their own path and presenting facts in an unbiased way. He says the Science Museum had at one point come under pressure from some parts of government to do an exhibition on fracking, but decided against it. The controversial practice, using water to fracture rock for fossil fuel extraction, has attracted opposition from some British environmental groups.
“I’ve decided against doing things that feel too propagandist,” Blatchford says. “I thought to myself, ‘Is the Science Museum presenting a preachy data-rich story on fracking actually going to help very much?’”
The Science Museum’s Our Lives in Data exhibition (until 24 September) explores the idea of big data, the large datasets available in the digital age. Blatchford says that in seeking economic backing for the show, the museum moved away from sponsorship talks with big IT and computer firms. “They asked us to do an evangelical promotion of the glories of big data.”

He says the museum’s research didn’t show the public taking a partisan stance on the topic, rather that they didn’t know what it was. “We need to show considerable nerve in sticking to that evidence and not becoming a propagandist for innovation.”
The Tomorrow’s World partnership will see a digital hub, podcasts and events attempt to capture new audiences.
“We are doing audience research, along with the BBC, on every stage of our project to see its impact,” says Blatchford. “We also do audience assessments on new exhibitions and galleries to see how much science visitors have taken in and if it has shifted perceptions. We do have a pretty reliable sense of what has and hasn’t worked.”
Everyday context
Peto says science museums need to think critically about how expertise is discussed and use new ways to reach audiences who might not ordinarily visit. “We do well in the 18-30 bracket, especially for a science museum, which tends to have an older or school-age audience. The Wellcome Collection gets a lot of students and young people visiting, which is great because it can be a good age for critical reflection.”
‘We may be a neutral space but we should present the arguments of our colleagues in the scientific community’
The Wellcome Collection’s 2012 show Brains: The Mind as Matter, which ran at Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry the following year and featured a silver brain cast and an ancient Egyptian’s cerebrum, attracted a new family audience by touring outside of London.
“They added some local content and worked with local scientists and collections, so it was a slightly different exhibition,” says Peto. “It had 100,000 visitors in London and an additional 100,000 in Manchester. It was a different kind of audience, and through a straightforward partnership.”
In terms of engagement, relating the sometimes abstract ideas of science to people’s everyday lives is a must, says Hannah Crowdy, the interpretation manager at National Museums Northern Ireland, describing Ulster Museum’s Elements exhibition, which links chemical elements to objects sourced from different disciplines.
“So although it’s a science exhibition, in the case of colour, there’s beautiful glass and ceramics from our fine art collection,” says Crowdy. “People might visit and think it’s a science exhibition, or they might focus on the art or archaeology we’ve included in the displays that hopefully give the visitors another way in.”
Crowdy says that the touring version of the show can get objects out of local museums’ collections that relate to the theme but that had not previously been thought of as being suitable for a science display. Collections should be used as a starting point, she adds, along with presenting the familiar with an unfamiliar slant to capture people’s interest.
Putting the audience first
What is clear is that despite the changing political climate, many museums still see themselves neither representing sponsors nor governments, but primarily catering to the needs of their audiences. But where does this leave issues such as evolution and cli- mate change, which are topics that are vulnerable to politicisation?
“We may be a neutral, trusted space but there is no doubt that we should present the arguments of our colleagues in the scientific community,” says Sam Alberti, the keeper of science and technology at National Museums Scotland (NMS). Its six science and technology galleries use games, interactive exhibits as well as displays to explore developments such as Dolly the sheep and the large electron-positron collider at Cern.
“We present these exhibits in a way that stimulates our visitors to think for them- selves,” says Alberti. “We should present evidence for evolution by natural selection and humankind’s impact on the environment. But we should calmly and not sensationally acknowledge that there are other interpretations of these narratives.”
Ian Brunswick, the head of programming at the Science Gallery, Dublin, thinks science museums should not “realistically be expected to compensate for insufficient formal education or declining public awareness of science”. With controversial scientific issues in particular, research has shown that an educational approach might not be the answer and may entrench people’s opinions rather than change them.

“Engaging people’s critical faculty, exposing them to surprising counterpoints, giving them a voice and awakening a curiosity they didn’t know they had are all endeav- ours that science museums are well suited to,” Brunswick says.
Cross-disciplinary institutions that push a more ambivalent, less didactic view of science might give a richer experience to audiences, he adds – good news for London’s new Science Gallery, which will have a pro- gramme combining art, science and technology when it opens in 2018.
“Design museums and art galleries are delving into science and technology, and attracting more adult audiences,” Brunswick says. “This is probably because they engage with controversy, social questions and aesthetics in a way that is less overtly educational.”
Whether science museums didactically educate visitors on what is right and wrong, or use ambiguities around human knowledge to engage them collaboratively, their importance will not diminish if public trust in them continues to be high. The question then is what museums do with that trust and who it ultimately serves – science, the public or the wider economy.
Science heroes
The Royal Society’s Local Heroes scheme aims to engage local communities across the UK with science and scientists’ influence, with grants of up to £3,000 available.The programme was established for the society’s 350th anniversary in 2010, with 149 partner institutions and more than 1,500 events. Partners included Bromley Museum, which celebrated its collection of artefacts that once belonged to naturalist John Lubbock by introducing a beehive and running workshops on bees and honey.
“A lot of our activity happens in London, but this project is a good way of engaging non-London areas with science,” says David Chapman, the assistant public engagement manager at the Royal Society. “The UK is lucky because it has a rich history of scientific development across all disciplines.”
The grants are fairly modest, says Chapman, with 15 schemes winning in 2017,including Berwick Museum & Art Gallery’s exhibition Bright Lights in the Borders (until 30 September), which celebrates five eminent local scientists such as the polymath and astronomer Mary Somerville.
“We fund small museums because the impact of the grant can be bigger in those than in a national museum, plus they tend to have a better sense of community and place,” Chapman adds. “They are better able to reach local people too.”
Activities funded through the programme have included talks, stargazing events and taking specimens from a museum into an old people’s home.
“Science can be seen by people as something that’s not for them or something that is done by someone else in another place, but by bringing it to their doorstep it hopefully gets them to see it in a more familiar light,” Chapman says.
“We have found that people are interested in the history of their local area. And if that’s something they are already interested in, we can highlight science within that.”
“The simple answer is to keep track of where the big money is being spent in scientific developments, but also to be acutely aware of any heated public debates,” concludes Blatchford.
Rob Sharp is a freelance journalist.
Ian Blatchford is among the speakers at a session about science communication at the Museums Association Conference, 16-18 November, Manchester
www.museumsassociation.org/conference