The David Sainsbury Gallery will provide unique access into the world of technicians, with visitors able to try out the tasks technicians perform, explore their remarkable stories and meet real-life technicians in the gallery.

Funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation, the gallery will help address the urgent need for 800,000 additional technicians and apprentices across the STEM sector and provide vital careers education for young people.

This free gallery will invite young people into the extraordinary world of technicians. Featuring a wide variety of technician roles, the gallery will enable visitors to explore where technicians work, hear their extraordinary stories and meet real-life technicians who will lead special activities within the space for families and schools.

How can you get involved?
As part of this project, the gallery is running an extensive live programme of events for schools and families that will feature real life technicians on gallery and at various events throughout the year.
We are looking for technicians and their organisations to join our live programme to work with us to further engage young people with careers support and showcase the variety of industries, roles, and workplaces available to them.
There is no cost to your involvement – your technicians will participate in a free programme of training where they will work with local young people to create activities inspired by their work and their achievements. An experienced Science Museum team will support them to build their confidence as role models who will deliver a range of activities in the gallery:

• Engaging conversations, such as Q&A sessions
• Hands-on workshops
• Demonstrations
• Show-and-tell activities or object handling

We are looking for volunteers who:
• Are currently in technician roles
• Who can commit to a minimum of 5 volunteering days
• Who are keen to collaborate and participate in the programme, and who want to talk about their job and skills to young people in the Science Museum
• Can participate in some co-creation sessions and training courses to support them in engaging young people

Who is the programme for?

Your technicians will be creating and delivering the live programme for:

• Schools – booked education groups only in school termtime
• Family events – for family groups across weekends and holidays
• Special events – programming during the summer holiday period

What’s in it for technicians?

We hope that being involved in our programme will be a brilliant way to recognise the value that your staff bring to both your organisation and the wider world – to reward them, develop their skills and give them the satisfaction of becoming role models for the next generation.

Ready to get involved?

If you would like to get involved or find out more information, please contact
STEMVolunteers@sciencemuseum.ac.uk

You can also find out more about the gallery on our website www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/technicians

About the Science Museum

The Science Museum is part of the Science Museum Group, the world’s leading group of science museums that share a world-class collection providing an enduring record of scientific, technological and medical achievements from across the globe. Over the last century the Science Museum, the home of human ingenuity, has grown in scale and scope, inspiring visitors with exhibitions covering topics as diverse as robots, code-breaking, cosmonauts and superbugs. A decade of transformation for the museum concluded in 2020 with the opening of the largest medical galleries in the world, Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries, and Science City 1550 –1800: The Linbury Gallery, the story of how London became a hub of discovery. The Science Museum was named a winner of the prestigious Art Fund Museum of the Year prize for 2020.

About Gatsby
In 1967 David Sainsbury wrote out a cheque for five pounds to establish the Gatsby Charitable Foundation. Lord Sainsbury has since given Gatsby more than £1 billion to distribute to charitable causes in fields he is passionate about, including neuroscience, plant science, development in East Africa and public policy.

Gatsby believe that a strong technical education system can open up good career opportunities for young people and adults, as well as drive greater national productivity and economic competitiveness. That is why our current work is focused on supporting the implementation of technical education reforms, championing technical careers, and the embedding of a stable career guidance system in England.