The Science Museum

HoNESt staff members

The Science Museum’s origins can be traced to the 1851 Great Exhibition and today it attracts over 3 million visitors each year. It is a member of the Science Museum Group whose other members include the Museum of Science and Industry (Manchester), the National Railway Museum (York) and the National Media Museum (Bradford). Its exhibits explore the past, present and future of science, technology and medicine. They are rich both in objects and the collections exceed 200,000 objects. Every year several hundred artefacts are acquired by the more than twenty curators, each of whom has a specialist field.

As the home of public engagement with science, the Museum combines its unparalleled collection of historical objects with cutting-edge technology and contemporary science news and debate, to help our visitors make sense of the science that shapes their lives and to inspire the next generation of scientists. It is devoted therefore to linking history to understanding the present and the future.

The Science Museum Group is a centre of scholarship. It is recognised by British research councils as an ‘Independent Research Organisation’ a status awarded only “to organisations which make an enormous contribution to research, both within and outside of the higher education sector”. For the period 2013-15, the Science Museum Group was awarded 24 Collaborative Doctoral Award studentships for doctoral studies jointly supervised with universities.

Role in HoNESt

Staff from SM will lead the historical case study of the UK (WP2) taking also part on the writting group, will be involved in the interdisciplinary work package between historians and sociologists (WP3) and in the dissemination workpackage (WP6).