Final Report Editor Ulrike Felt June 2003

Museums and Science Centres as Spaces for OPUS 218
A second similar example is the Haus der Natur (Haus der Natur) in Austria, located in
Salzburg, the capital of the identical named region, which is one of the few provincial
science museums that have super-regional reputation.
From Museum to Science Centres
If the science museum is a relatively long established institution in the majority of
European countries, science centres are more recent. Although new museums are
created too, the tendency of more and more centres being built is very strong. In
Belgium, the first three science centres have been erected in the last decade (The Park
of Scientific Adventure (PASS), near Mons; The Science Centre of Parentville, and the
Technopolis in Mechelen).
Sweden have around 20 science centres today, and have recently established a new
sciences centre (The Universeum) in Göteborg, which carries a national responsibly
and thus serving others science centres with innovation, knowledge and ideas. In
Portugal, a number of science centres have been created and the overall policy is to
establish a dense network of science centres throughout the country.
In the UK, the first science centres (Bristol’s Exploratory and Cardiff’s Techniquest)
were established in 1986. The number of centres had grown to 40 in 1997 (Gregory
and Miller, 1998:203), receiving an average of 50,000 visitors per year and centre. It
has been estimated by ECSITE-UK (the network set up to represent the science centre
sector) that over 90% of the UK population now lives within a two hour drive of a
science or discovery centre (Durrant, 2002). The sector as a whole receives around 11
million visits a year (Durant, 2002).
@Bristol provides an example of the type of projects that are being developed in the
UK. Explore@Bristol has a focus on science and technology; Wildscreen@Bristol
focusses more on environmental matters. Both projects seek to combine the use of
interactive exhibits, multimedia representations and hands-on activities to encourage
public engagement with science. They are attempting to reach out to audiences that
have been seen as traditionally difficult to attract to science museums, most notably
teenagers, the elderly, the disabled, and people from lower socio-economic groups.
Plans to greatly expand the national network of science centres in the UK arouse
suspicion that the public will be presented with a surfeit of new museums and
exhibitions. The £6 billion (check) they received from the National Lottery has been
described as ‘the largest single investment in science communication to take place in
the UK’ (Thomas: 2000:64). This money must be matched by other sources of funding
and revenue, and is not intended to cover operating costs. It has been argued by
Durant that the Science Centre sector will need 30-35% of its income supported by
state funds to maintain themselves over the longer period (Durant, 2002).