Many UK government research establishments were transformed by processes of organisational change during 1970–2005. This article explores the outcome of those processes by drawing on a series of original life story interviews with twenty former government scientists.

This article covers the key findings from a set of qualitative and quantitative research carried out in 2019–2020. This study investigated the relationship between public and professional perceptions of contemporary collecting with particular focus on science, technology and medical museums.

The changing representation of disability, race and mental health in European medical museums and the under-representation of reproduction; ‘risks’ involved in exhibiting related collections, and strategies to help rehabilitate these topics and their material culture in the future medical museum.