Our vision
Our vision of a positive future is one where the public is informed, inspired and empowered, through science, to help make the kind of fair and sustainable society that we all want to live in.
We believe that we need to work together to tackle global issues, and that science centres are best-placed to inform and empower the public to get involved.
So, in parallel to our projects and events, we’re working to create a network of global issues-focused science centres in the South West of England.
We feel that science centres need to be radically reimagined to have a global appeal and a more significant role in society.
Our network will be formed of cultural centres, developed in collaboration with the communities that they serve, and playing a fundamental role in creating global citizens.
Each centre will be rooted in its local community, themed on local expertise, and an exemplar for how buildings can benefit both people and planet (see images).
Empowering the public to help tackle global issues
We all have an important role to play in tackling global issues. We want to make sure the science behind these issues is clear, and show how people locally and around the world are finding solutions. We want to enable and motivate everybody to be proactive in striving for a better world.
Engaging the public with local research & industry
Science centres are the bridge between scientists and the public. We have a huge variety of impactful research and industry going on in the region, and we want to create a dedicated space to connect the public with it.
Filling the gap
We are filling the gap of science centres in the region:
How will it happen?
Since 2020, we’ve been working on projects and events as a nomadic, ‘micro-scale’ science centre. Along the way, we’ve been connecting with communities, organisations and researchers in the region, developing our (charitable) business model, and keeping updated with the best-practice science engagement methods via our science centre network.
As we enter our 4th year as a charity at the end of April 2024, we’re preparing to relaunch our business plan (which we’ll share on this page). We feel that the distributed population density in the South West would work best with a distributed science centre network – and we’re working to create the first centres in Exeter and in Barnstaple. We’re still in the early stages, and we’ll be continuing our public consultations to ensure each centre is rooted in community need and expertise.
Stay tuned for an up-to-date business plan coming soon. To understand the work that we do and the impact we’re having, take a look at our latest Annual Report.
Our 3 year target
Keep scrolling down to see an animation (on desktop only) of our 3 year target for our next 3 years as a charity. Read it from the inside outwards, to see our actions / status for each year. The coloured sections correspond to different themes, and the descriptions around the outside describe our aims for each theme by this year. (You can also see a text-based version of the resource for screen reader users, or view the full image here)
We’re updating this at the moment for our next 3 years (April 2024-2026) – stay tuned!