Strategic Priorities 2017–2030: Reissued 2020
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INSPIRING FUTURES STRATEGIC PRIORITIES 2017–2030: REISSUED 2020 INSPIRING FUTURES: STRATEGIC PRIORITIES 2017–2030: REISSUED 2020 INSPIRING FUTURES: STRATEGIC PRIORITIES 2017–2030: REISSUED 2020 CONTENTS Note on 2020 reissue PREFACE 4 This long-term strategy was first published in 2017 as the culmination of FOREWORD 6 a rigorous process that began in 2015. It is a living document and the need for INTRODUCTION 8 review and adaptation before 2030 was acknowledged from the start. A formal STRATEGIC PRIORITIES commitment to review the strategic priorities after no less than five years is built in (p12) and will fall in 2022. But Rising priorities at 2020 12 the progress we have already made in realising our mission to inspire futures, Grow science capital in 16 and the fast pace of change within the individuals and society Group and the external environment, have led us to this interim review and Grow our audiences and 20 refresh of the original document. exceed their expectations Inspiring Futures was always conceived as an overarching framework, not Sustain and grow our 24 a straitjacket. It continues to be a world-class collection touchstone for our planning and activities, with a focus on the seven Extend our international reach 28 strategic priorities. In refreshing the document for this edition, we have Transform our estate 33 kept changes to a minimum. Mostly, changes are updating, as follows: Harness the potential of digital 36 - Changes to titles of people, organisations and initiatives Increase income 39 - Revision of numbers and data, where more recent data was MONITORING PROGRESS 42 available, including the information boxes containing charts, tables and lists in each strategic priority section - Addition of some recent activity and plans In addition, we are addressing other significant areas that have moved up the Group’s agenda since 2017 and that we anticipate will be more comprehensively articulated in the next phase of Inspiring Futures from 2022. These include a vigorously renewed focus on sustainability and a raft of issues around people; these rising priorities are outlined in a new section to supplement the existing An Explainer leads a live science demonstration at the Chemistry strategic priorities (p12). Bar in Wonderlab, the Science Museum’s interactive gallery The revised text was approved by the All images © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum unless Board of Trustees in February 2020. otherwise stated 2 3 INSPIRING FUTURES: STRATEGIC PRIORITIES 2017–2030: REISSUED 2020 INSPIRING FUTURES: STRATEGIC PRIORITIES 2017–2030: REISSUED 2020 INSPIRING FUTURES Each of the museums within the Group build on this. Our sponsor department, We extend our warm thanks to Science has international stature, as well as the Department for Digital, Culture, Museum Group Trustee and former a fierce sense of pride in its regional Media & Sport (DCMS), launched its Science Minister Lord Willetts, who heritage. As a result, we have immense culture white paper in March 2016, chaired the strategy review group, and potential for increasing ‘science and it has been pleasing to see how to all Trustees and external experts capital’ across large and diverse well our own ambitions map onto who advised, guided and challenged audiences. Investment in our museums government priorities. us throughout the review process. across the UK has long been part of our We embark on the implementation plan to move the Group’s centre The Science Museum Group is restless, of Inspiring Futures with confidence of gravity northwards. ambitious and innovative in pursuit and optimism, encouraged by the of these objectives, and much has continuing support of our Trustees The strategic priorities identified changed since our previous strategy and external advisers, colleagues, key in Inspiring Futures will not only was formulated – not least the stakeholders and the visiting public. encourage and empower the Group addition of the Science and Industry to aim higher but will also enable us Museum in Manchester to the Group. to sustain our role as a world leader We therefore took the opportunity of in both the science and museum the impending mid-term review of our sectors, and to deliver world-class and previous strategy document, Strategic inspirational experiences. As a Group, Ambitions 2012–2022, to create the we will continue to push boundaries new and holistic approach for the whole and in turn grow in confidence, energy of the Group set out in this document. and ambition. Over the next decade and beyond, we will sustain the impact and We succeed through our people. breadth of our science, technology, Inspiring Futures touches every Dame Mary Archer, Chairman engineering and mathematics (STEM) part of the organisation and is the offer; develop, grow and increase responsibility of all our teams. access to our extraordinary world-class Running throughout this document is collection; extend our international appreciation of what we have achieved reach; transform our estate; become together so far, and confidence that digital world leaders; and increase our we will continue to adapt and develop self-generated income – all the while in future. In order to deliver on our exceeding our audience’s expectations. aspirations, we do need to increase capacity, not merely in numbers, but Sir Ian Blatchford, Director Dame Mary Archer, Chairman of the Science Museum Group, and The five museums of the Science Museum Group We are a key player in the national in skills and behaviours such as digital Sir Ian Blatchford, Director are a key national resource. With our unparalleled science ecosystem. We work with a and entrepreneurship. We also need range of partners at home and abroad, to be able to share skills and people collections in the fields of science, technology, joining forces with distinguished appropriately across the organisation. engineering, mathematics and medicine, we are partners such as the Royal Society, the The Group will also increase the sum Royal Academy of Engineering and the of its human resources and create uniquely placed to draw people of all ages to Wellcome Trust. On the international more routes to participation through engage with science in an inspirational and informal scene we are making strides as a leader a broader range of opportunities, in soft power, from the recent ground- including volunteering and new way. Over 600,000 of the Group’s 5 million-plus breaking Cosmonauts exhibition at apprenticeships. visitors each year come in education groups, so the Science Museum, and then in Moscow, to the signing of partnership we have an extraordinary capacity to open people’s agreements with museums in Brazil, minds to the creativity and wonder of science. China and South Korea; and we will 4 5 INSPIRING FUTURES: STRATEGIC PRIORITIES 2017–2030: REISSUED 2020 Opposite: Tim Peake, the first British astronaut in space for more than 20 years, is pictured with Ian Blatchford (left) and Lord SCIENCE Willetts (right) at the press conference for his Principia mission, which was held at the IN SOCIETY Science Museum From the post-war era we have Baby, a ignorant of these disciplines – and new Medicine galleries, shows the working replica of the earliest stored- what better way for us to educate extraordinarily diverse ways in program computer, Watson and Crick’s ourselves than by going to the Science which people have hoped to be model of the structure of DNA, and Museum? It is a great way to learn cured of disease. one of the Apollo capsules that took and to ignite curiosity about science. men to the Moon and back. These are There is a barely suppressed sense Technology is science put to use, and objects of profound significance for all of excitement about our objects and for every object in our collection there of us – they tell a global story, not just events – the past 12 months have seen has been a person who designed it a British one, and one that continues to the first journey of the restored Flying or used it. So these museums full of influence our future. Scotsman and the real-time link to scientific objects also tell us about our the launch of Tim Peake’s flight to the humanity. They place science at the The deliberations for Inspiring International Space Station. Educating heart of society – where it belongs. Futures have reminded us of the and enthusing people of every age And that means we must do more to obligations that follow from holding about science and technology is a illuminate today’s controversies. We this extraordinary collection – curating crucial part of our mission. will invest more in exhibitions which are and explaining it, continuing to add to vivid and contemporary, following on it at a pace which matches the speed We also place science and technology from our recent successes. How does of technological and industrial change, at the heart of the history of our nation fracking work and does it pose any and making the collection easy to – and the world. One of the planned environmental threats? What is climate access online. Over the next 15 years new galleries in the Science Museum change? What are GM crops? How does we will be investing in new galleries shows that the rise of London in the the brain work? and buildings across the whole Group 17th and 18th centuries was intimately on a scale greater than ever before linked to its becoming a centre of In the following pages we set out the to discharge those obligations even science, which depended on the mission for the Science Museum Group better. Our objects are imbued with instrument-makers who made much of and how we will fulfil this through our meaning and significance and we will the science possible. This in turn was museums in the period up to 2030.