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Science Museum Group Journal
Image of a terrarium lit up in the corner of a room, with white walls behind.

Special birthday issue out now!

The 22nd issue of the Science Museum Group Journal is now live and features articles celebrating a decade of publication. The theme of the issue is Looking Back, Looking Forward, as articles reflect on the last ten years and look forward to development in the years to come. Here is a selection of articles to enjoy:

  • Elizabeth Edwards, Costanza Caraffa, and Ruth Quinn discuss photographic curatorship in museums and research institutions, and consider the role of the living archive in the digital age.
  • Will Sims and William Law present an object biography of a Rhodesian Railways carriage focusing on its operational life, re-examining colonial history.
  • Paul Craddock and Anna Harris consider the potential of film as a research methodology especially in the exploration of embodied knowledge. Their article is accompanied by a research film co-created with Cal Murphy Barton.
  • Helmuth Trischler reflects on creating an integrated research museum that both advances the work of museums of science and technology and impacts wider issues in science and society. 

The December issue also features Christine Ferguson's examination of imbalances of power in the famous Cottingley Fairies scandal, as well as a reflection by Geoff Belknap et al on the Communities & Crowds digitization project accompanied by their downloadable toolkits for digital research volunteers. Science Museum Group Director Sir Ian Blatchford looks back at the achievements of the Journal and Tim Boon considers the future of innovative Open Access publishing. Finally, in a special review of the decade, ten scholars and curators review their favourite exhibitions, innovations and books from the past decade.

For this special issue we have also completed a technical re-development. You’ll see a refreshed and more dynamic homepage, the ability to zoom in to detail of images, and an improved faceted search so that you can easily find the authors, articles or themes that you are interested in. 

Please note the above image is from METAMORPHOSIS: Innovation in Eco-Photography and Film, photo taken by Harry Sweeney. See the article it's featured in here.

Photograph of a Black woman walking past a group of white men, police officers lining the road. This photograph was taken outside the House of Commons. The men are there to demonstrate their support for the racist and fascist MP, Enoch Powell.
A young girl seems to interact with a small fairy against a woodland background. The image is captioned 'Fairy offering flowers to Iris' and is one of the set of a few staged photos from the Cottingley Fairies scandal in the early twentieth century.
Tony Webb holds up one of his carvings, a cherubic head.

Do you have a paper to publish?

We are accepting articles for the autumn 2025 issue of the Journal with a submission deadline of 1 April 2025. The Journal publishes writing by academics, museum professionals and independent scholars on all topics relevant to science museums – from the history of science, technology and medicine to the study of material culture, to museology, informal learning or exhibitions and display. We are also interested in writing on important questions relevant to museum practice such as decolonisation, feminism and diversity. The Journal is published completely Open Access (i.e. without any charge to the authors or readers) in spring and autumn. If you have any questions about submissions, please see the submission guidelines or contact us.

AI-generated image of a person in a hoodie looking out into what appears to be Oz, down a yellow brick road toward a green castle. There are curtains on either side. Alan Warburton: ‘The Wizard of AI’ (2023). AI generated film. 19 minutes 19 seconds. Production still.

Alan Warburton: ‘The Wizard of AI’ (2023). AI generated film. 19 minutes 19 seconds. Production still.

Research and Public History News

Signing Sound Collaborative Doctoral Award

A new Collaborative Doctoral Award, Signing Sound: Deaf Gain within Inclusive Co-created Audio Descriptions of Museum Experiences is available to prospective researchers in order to foster research into the relationships between museums and deaf audiences with an emphasis on developing or improving methods through which sound can be communicated and interpretation can be enhanced. This will include the creation of new BSL signs for interpretation where necessary. The project is a collaboration between the University of Westminster's School of Social Sciences, the Science Museum Group and the Scottish Sensory Centre, University of Edinburgh and is funded by Technē. More information can be found here.

Unearthly Ecologies Collaborative Doctoral Award

This Collaborative Doctoral Award partners the Science Museum with Nottingham Trent University to support a PhD on space ecologies, alongside work with the Science Museum's Public Programme. Researchers will be asked to consider environmental questions about waste, lunar exploration and habitability. This project will incorporate material from the Dana Library and National Collections Centre with supervisory support from the English department at NTU and the Astrophysics department at the University of Warwick. This project is part of the Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnerships, and more information on the Unearthly Ecologies opportunity can be found here.

Collaborative Doctoral Training Partnerships at the Science Museum Group

The Science Museums and Archives Consortium is in the process of selecting the next three CDP studentships, which students will begin in 2025. Prior years' projects include the intertwined history of chocolate transportation and pathogen transmission, fossil colonialism in Asia, the history of the organic movement 1985-present. Successful projects will be announced before Christmas. More information about the Collaborative Doctoral Training Partnerships for the Science Museums and Archives Consortium is available here.

Science Museum Library Available Resources

Looking for your next read? 
The Science Museum Library invites you to visit and peruse the more than 100 new books we have recently added to our collections. Browse our virtual new arrivals bookshelves (print books, e-books, and arriving soon) or visit in person to see the new books display. The library—and the new books—are open for all to use and enjoy. Please note that, to all but Science Museum Group colleagues and Imperial College staff and postgraduates, the Science Museum Library is a reference library, meaning you are more than welcome to consult materials in our collections within the library but resources cannot be checked out. For more information, please visit our website or contact the library here.

We hope to see you in the library soon. The Annual Report for the Science Museum Group was released in October and is available for online reading.
A salt print. Yellow page in photo book, displaying photograph of doorway.
A red railway carriage with yellow trim around the windows. This was a carriage belonging to Rhodesia Railways that was later transported back to the UK for display.

Keep up to date with all the latest research news, events and Science Museum Group Journal articles by following us on X (formerly Twitter): @SMGresearch