Science Museums of the 21^st Century Competition

Since 2006 the Dynasty Foundation has been conducting the Science Museums of the 21st Century grant competition for Russian science and technology museums and natural science museums.

The goal of the competition is to increase the number of museums and centers that popularize science in modern and interesting formats.

The competition task is to facilitate consolidation of creative forces (of engineers, museum workers, scientists, and designers) capable of

• developing and implementing scientific thematic expositions that tell about fundamental scientific concepts and discoveries in a popular and descriptive manner;
• inventing, developing, and implementing interactive exhibits popularizing science that are original and attractive for the public; and
• presenting to society new interesting forms of popularizing scientific knowledge.

Five grant competitions have been held from 2006 to 2011, and 50 projects from different regions of the country have received support from the Dynasty Foundation.
The Science Museums of the 21st Century competition has become not only a competition but also a program that in 2009 and 2011 included two large-scale science festivals created by a team of scientists, museum curators, artists, and journalists and held in Moscow.

The situation with science museums in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Petrozavodsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Kazan, and Irkutsk has changed significantly. The competition and the festivals have played their role in the change. New modern governmental and private centers popularizing science have appeared in these cities.

A new program in the competition will appear in 2012: training at the Copernicus Science Center (Warsaw) for museum leaders from small towns of Russia with a population of 10000–300000 people. Almost every small Russian town has a little museum that, at times, is the only center of cultural life. But museums are often unable to attract the citizens' attention: they lack the necessary experience.
If we try to change the situation, then these museums and centers can become sites where local schools will conduct lessons in physics and biology and where festivals and exhibitions will be held.
The training tour at one of the best cultural and educational centers in Europe for leaders of such museums will help them bring bright and lively ideas into their work and make their museums attractive for children and adults.

The competition is conducted by the Dynasty Foundation with the organizational support of Agency 21, Ltd.

'Escape from Surprises, or Krasnoyarsk Discoveries,' a new exposition, Krasnoyarsk Region Museum

The First Science Museums of the 21^st Century competition

In 2006, the Dynasty Foundation organized the first Science Museums of the 21^st Century grant competition with support from the Association of Science and Technology Museums of the Russian Committee of the International Council of Museums (ICOM).

The goal of the competition is to foster the emergence in Russia of new (innovative) museum exhibit formats—interactive displays that give visitors, especially children and students, the chance to learn about science and the world around them while having fun.

In 2006, 84 applications were submitted. They came from museums large and small, private and public (including school-based museums), and various regions of Russia.

Ten projects were awarded grants in the 2006 competition.

Museums in Troitsk, Novosibirsk, Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Yoshkar-Ola, Nizhny Novgorod, and other cities used these grants to create interactive exhibitions that soon became hits with their visitors, especially their younger visitors.

Thanks to our competition, a science museum was opened in Krasnoyarsk. The exhibition created by the Kazan museum that received a Dynasty Foundation grant was included in a list of the city's landmarks.

The Second Science Museums of the 21^st Century competition

The organizers of the 2007 grant competition set themselves the task of consolidating those creative forces (engineers, museum curators, scientists, designers) capable of conceiving, developing, and constructing original interactive high-tech expositions that attract the public and popularize science.

Our second grant competition included two categories:

• Interactive popular science expositions;
• Popular science festivals.

In 2007, 61 applications were submitted.

Ten projects were awarded grants. Grant winners hailed from Troitsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Petrozavodsk, Dubna, Dmitrovgrad, Kaliningrad, Kazan, Saint Petersburg, and Moscow.

The Third Science Museums of the 21^st Century competition

Grants were awarded to projects in two categories:

1. Modernization of exposition activity of science and technology museums and natural science museums

In this category, the foundation supports the development of thematic expositions that present fundamental scientific concepts and discoveries in an accessible and eye-catching manner.

2. Creation of interactive popular science exhibits

In this category, the foundation supports projects for original interactive exhibits or sets of exhibits that explain the laws of the physical world, the meaning of scientific breakthroughs, the mechanisms of technological discoveries, and the principles of living organisms and systems to museum visitors.

For the competition, 80 applications were received: 64 of these were accepted, and 16 projects were considered in the final round.

On December 23, 2008, the Advisory Council announced the results of the competition.

The nine winning projects were from museums in Irkutsk, Samara, Petersburg, Omsk, Petrozavodsk, Moscow, Novosibirsk, Barnaul, and Glazov.

The Fourth Science Museums of the 21^st Century grant competition

The goal of the competition was to widen the arsenal of resources for science popularization in Russia by facilitating activities of Russian science museums.

The 2009 competition was a transition to new popularizing projects of the foundation and was a closed competition in which primarily organizations that have already received Dynasty museum competition grants participated.

The competition was held in two categories:

1. Modernization of exposition activity of science and technology museums and natural science museums

In this category, the foundation supports the creation of thematic expositions portraying fundamental scientific concepts and discoveries in a vivid and popular manner.
The project must be developed and implemented by a team of engineers, museum specialists, scientists, designers, and PR specialists.

2. Creation of interactive popular science exhibits

In this category, the foundation supports projects for original interactive exhibits or sets of exhibits that explain the laws of the physical world, the meaning of scientific breakthroughs, the mechanisms of technological discoveries, and the principles of living organisms and systems to museum visitors.
Preference was given to the following areas of physics: optics, thermodynamics, theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, and also astrophysics, cosmology, and bioinformatics.

Altogether, 35 applications were submitted for the competition.
The nine winning projects were from museums in Moscow and Dubna, Nizhny Novgorod and Petrozavodsk, Saint Petersburg and Troitsk.

The Fifth Science Museums of the 21^st Century grant competition

The competition task is to facilitate consolidation of creative forces (of engineers, museum workers, scientists, and designers) capable of:

• developing and implementing scientific thematic expositions that tell about fundamental scientific concepts and discoveries in a popular and descriptive manner;
• inventing, developing, and implementing interactive exhibits popularizing science that are original and attractive for the public; and
• presenting to society other interesting forms of popularizing science.

The competition was conducted in two categories:

• Modernization of Expositions in Natural Science and Science and Technology Museums
• Creation of Interactive Exhibits Popularizing Science

The competition was open to:
Russian nonprofit governmental and nongovernmental organizations, museums, and educational and research organizations.

Altogether 89 applications were submitted for the competition, and 58 were admitted.
Twelve projects received support from the Dynasty Foundation.

The Sixth Science Museums of the 21^st Century grant competition

Grants for Russian science and technology museums and natural science museums and popular science centers

The goal of the competition is to foster spreading museums and centers in Russia that popularize science in modern and interesting formats.

The sixth competition was being held in three categories:

• Category 1. Modernization of expositions of science and technology museums and natural science museums
• Category 2. Creation of interactive popular science exhibits
• Category 3. Participation in a one-week training “Museum programs in popular science for school children”
  This training is organized by the Dmitry Zimin Dynasty Foundation together with the Copernicus Science Center in Warsaw.
  It will be held at the Copernicus Science Center (Warsaw, Poland) 12–18 May 2012.
  The Copernicus Science Center opened in Warsaw in November 2010 and is the largest science-popularizing center in Eastern Europe.

Altogether 93 applications were submitted for the competition.
Ten projects received support from the Dynasty Foundation, and eleven museum workers—the winners in the third category—will have training at the Copernicus Science Center in Warsaw.