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Welcome to our peer-reviewed journal where authors from across the world publish on what matters in science museums today.

The Science Museum Group Journal presents the global research community with peer-reviewed papers relevant to the work of science museums everywhere. It is completely Open Access and freely shares the research of our five national UK museums while warmly inviting contributions from international museum professionals, academics and researchers to form creative conversations.

Featured Content

Stephen Hawking with an original book by Isaac Newton
By Katrina Dean and Susan Gordon

Collaboration and mediation: a guide to the creation of the Stephen Hawking Archive

This paper discusses the creation of the Stephen Hawking Archive in collaboration with scientific colleagues, technical and personal assistants and with the use of assistive communications technology, advocating for the addition of further digital material to the Stephen Hawking Archive.

Colour photograph of Stephen Hawkings blackboard covered in doodles and grafitti
By Juan-Andres Leon

Stephen Hawking’s superspace and supergravity blackboard: an iconic artefact in the making

A graffitied blackboard has become the most charismatic object in Stephen Hawking’s office. This article describes why, and then argues that the blackboard is a microcosm of efforts in theoretical physics of the past generation that yielded both profound insight and disappointment.

By Hannah Redler-Hawes

We create the Universe: artists and scientists take on the Big Bang

To the Edge of Time, co-curated by Hannah Redler-Hawes and Thomas Hertog, explored the Big Bang discovery story and the future of time through the science of Georges Lemaître, Albert Einstein, and Stephen Hawking and modern and contemporary artworks. This paper describes the thinking and development process behind the exhibition.

Issues

Oil painting portrait of Professor Stephen Hawking
21

Spring 2024

Current Issue

Welcome to Issue 21 of the Science Museum Group Journal. This issue features a special collection of four articles exploring some of the most significant scientific acquisitions made in recent decades, that of Professor Stephen Hawking’s office at the Science Museum Group and the papers of Professor Hawking at the University of Cambridge. Here Tilly […]

Daguerreotype portrait of Francis Marrian by George Shaw
20

Autumn 2023

Welcome to the Autumn issue of the Science Museum Group Journal. This is an open issue that is especially strong in demonstrating the power of museum collections in research – the ‘material turn’ about which so much has been written. A case in point is the mini-collection Revealing Observatory Networks Through Object Stories in which […]

Colour photograph of a cotton skirt or shoulder cloth made on the Coromandel Coast for the Indonesian market
19

Spring 2023

The Spring Issue of the Journal is now out! This is an open issue that includes research focusing on the Science Museum Group’s own collections – you’ll find a re-evaluation of an important electronic synthesizer with a focus on its role in live performance; a discussion of how an Indigenous Australian shield came to be […]

Photograph of piano felts being brushed out
18

Autumn 2022

Congruence Engine

We start 2023 with a double-sized special issue showcasing the Congruence Engine project. Part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Towards a National Collection suite of discovery projects, Congruence Engine explores how linking the nation’s collections using digital tools can enable new kinds of research and practice. Like the project itself the issue […]

17

Spring 2022

Welcome to Issue 17 of the Science Museum Group Journal. Here James Mansell et al explore how audiences can engage with sound objects through listening; Sophie Vohra traces the complex meanings behind commemorative celebrations of the Stockton and Darlington Railway and Efram Sera-Shriar goes back to the original photographic material to re-examine Harry Price’s famous […]

16

Autumn 2021

Issue 16 features a strong strain of research from within the Science Museum Group. Robert Gwynne brings together railway and computer histories by looking at the long engagement of the railways with data driven technologies; Abigail Wilson looks at the impact of Joseph Whitworth’s legacy on Manchester’s built environment; and Alex Rose discusses a collection […]

15

Spring 2021

This Spring issue reflects the wealth of research which continues to be conducted and written about despite pandemic disruption. A collection of papers associated with the Science Museum’s ‘Science City 1550–1800: The Linbury Gallery’ features an article by Jane Desborough and Gloria Clifton on how the absence of women in the sources on early modern […]

14

Autumn 2020

Special issue: Curating medicine

The curators of Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries reflect on their experiences of creating these significant new displays at the Science Museum in London.

Colour photograph of freeze dried genetically engineered mice
13

Spring 2020

A reminder of the richness of our cultural spaces and the research relating to them, including a conversation among curators and researchers exploring the politics behind the redisplay of the ‘Blue Whale’ at the Natural History Museum. Meanwhile, writing-prize winner Daniel Belteki traces the journey of an astronomical model from creation through various displays to its deaccession.

Sepia photograph of a cyclist with his high wheeler bicycle from the late nineteenth century
12

Autumn 2019

A look at how museum-academic partnerships can be improved, a mini-collection of papers on 'Technologies of Romance' and the role of enthusiast expert groups as ambassadors for stored collections.

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