For over a century we have studied, displayed and cared for the nation’s scientific heritage. This incredible collection is astonishing, beautiful and world-renowned.
In 2016, only a small proportion of the Science Museum Group Collection was visible online or in our five museums. To address this, we embarked on an ambitious multi-year programme (known as One Collection) to transform public access to these historic items.
The collection is now accessible through public tours, school and research visits to the Hawking Building, with half a million object records freely available online through the world’s most extensive online collection of science, technology, engineering and medicine. The public can now explore more of the collection than ever before, from anywhere in the world.
In January 2025 we published a detailed report on the One Collection Programme, which can be read here:
Transforming access to the Science Museum Group collection
What happened?
More than 300,000 historic objects have been carefully recorded, digitised, packed and moved into our sector leading facility, the Hawking Building, at the Science and Innovation Park, bringing together these historic objects under one roof for the first time for conservation, study and public access. These films show construction of the Hawking Building and how the collection was prepared and moved into its new home.
The Hawking Building now houses much of the Science Museum Group Collection and provides stable conditions for its long-term preservation and care. It is the size of 600 double decker buses (90m wide and almost 300m long) and features a spacious storage hall, conservation laboratories, research spaces.
This timelapse film shows more than one hundred large objects being moving into the Hawking Building.
The Hawking Building is now open regularly for school visits and behind-the-scenes guided public tours. These tours are incredibly popular so sign up to be the first to hear when these go on sale.
Researchers can now also apply to visit and see a particular object from the collection, in-person or virtually. If you’re keen to find out how the Science Museum Group Collection can support your research, find out more on the Science and Innovation Park website.
To mark the opening of the Hawking Building acclaimed artist Bedwyr Williams produced ‘The Wrong Thing’, a film about the collection.
What’s happening now?
Building on the work of this ambitious programme, we will continue to share incredible stories from the collection through short films and long-form online content. Our podcast and online tools (such as our Google Chrome extension) will help you discover items from across this vast collection.
As part of our work, we continue to photograph and study thousands of historic items at the Science and Innovation Park. These items are being published online for the first time, ready for you to explore.
