Toward a National Research Center and Science Museum
A strategic infrastructure for culture, research, and civic engagement
To the Minister of Culture
To the Minister of University and Research
To the Minister of Education and Merit
Deputy Ministers,
On 28 April 2026, a conference was held at the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei to promote the establishment of a Research Centre – National Scientific Meta-Museum, following a proposal by the Academy’s Commettee for Natural History and Science Museums. The event was attended by scholars and researchers, museologists, science communicators, journalists and representatives of institutions from across Italy, who agree in highlighting the need to enhance the immense national scientific heritage: a complex ‘archipelago’ of collections scattered across the country and, with rare exceptions such as the national museums, often neglected and even invisible to the general public: they are, in fact, excluded from the ongoing transformations in the way knowledge is communicated and becomes a participatory practice.
The Centre’s project aims to overcome this structural lag through the gradual development of a dynamic, digital and physical network designed to connect museums, universities, research centres and schools, highlighting their extraordinary untapped potential. The aim is not to replace existing structures, but to act as a shared operating system that preserves the autonomy of individual institutions, translating their wealth of knowledge into accessible added value. The prefix ‘meta’ placed before the word ‘museum’ underscores the ambition to move beyond the narrow specialisms that continue to confine scientific culture to elite yet dramatically isolated spaces, which are rarely visited or understood.
The Centre would help to address the lack of scientific knowledge that plagues Italy and the poor mathematical and scientific skills among young people, as documented by the regular OECD PISA surveys. Making science more accessible and widely understood means strengthening society’s awareness and skills in civic engagement, encouraging younger generations to choose scientific careers, and helping them to understand how science can contribute to a better present and future.
The Centre is an open and innovative hybrid institution, a permanent STEM innovation hub focused on:
- a research space, the heart of the centre, where scientists will work on technological adaptation, the development of languages and museological innovation;
- selective and coordinated digitisation of key collections and artefacts of high scientific, historical and narrative value, aimed at forming a dynamic system of constantly evolving relationships, to create both physical and digital exhibition itineraries designed to teach the scientific method;
- Use of advanced technologies, generative artificial intelligence, virtual simulations and augmented reality to enhance the wider heritage and make science engaging and accessible by establishing connections between artefacts from the past and the world of current research.;
By avoiding the risk of unfeasible large-scale projects and high initial costs, the Centre could be launched as a pilot project, an initial network of partners, a small, highly qualified team and a lightweight base – perhaps within existing institutions or in derelict or underused public spaces, provided they are suitable for development. This would allow the impact, actual costs and sustainability to be assessed over time, whilst progressively building a national infrastructure.
The project shows clear similarities with existing national initiatives, such as the Digital Heritage Gateway Platform of the Ministry of Culture, for which the Centre could represent a future development.
The implementation of the project, as called for at the close of the conference, requires collaboration between representatives of science museums, sector associations and research centres; above all, however, it is essential that policy-makers – and in particular the Ministries of Culture, Education and Merit, and Universities and Research – take ownership of it, supporting it and bringing it into operation.
Transforming Italy’s scientific heritage into a strategic asset is a civic and democratic imperative that Italy cannot afford to postpone.
La Commissione per i Musei Naturalistici e i Musei della Scienza Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei