Mercury #15

ISSUE 15

SCIENCE IN THE SUNA partnership with Esplora, Malta’s spectacular Science Centre

FOCUS ON THE HUBSDesigning an environment for learning

CURRENT EXPERIENCESMaking spaces that work for the users

ISSUE 15 : EXPERIENCES

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Glasgow Science Centre lives or dies by the number of people who come through our doors each day, each week and each year. Our visitors are our very reason for existence, and we welcome more than 350,000 annually.People’s motives for visiting are varied. Many love the modernistic building, and its location on Clydeside. Parents see it as a safe place for children to visit, to have fun and to learn. School parties, adults, teachers and the general public all have their reasons for coming to the centre.

What these groups of people have in common is a shared sense of experience. Places like our science centre continue to be relevant to our “public” because we respond to their needs when it comes to their experience of the centre as a place of entertainment and learning.

Currently the centre has been going through a period of renewal, introducing new permanent exhibitions such as the massively popular BodyWorks and the new Powering the Future.

We have also modernised our Planetarium to make it fully digital, capable of showing the galaxy we live in – and its neighbouring galaxies – to an amazing degree of detail thanks to the latest technology available. If you haven’t yet tried the new planetarium “experience” I recommend you do so soon!

None of this happens by accident. When our Director of Science Dr Robin Hoyle sits down with his team of science communicators and designers, their first concern when considering a new exhibit is the concerns of the visitor. What do they want to see? How best can they interact with the exhibit? Can people of all ages get something out of our shows and demonstrations?

Together they will painstakingly work out what “the experience” might be like for every type of visitor. This takes place long before the first designs are attempted, or early estimates at project cost, and so on.

Dr Stephen Breslin Chief ExecutiveGlasgow Science Centre

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Esplora Kalkara, Malta

Everyone expects “experience” today. Generally, we are time-poor. Physical places like ours have to compete for the attention of younger people, who are used to accessing information and entertainment quickly and in rich formats, via smart phones, games consoles and the Web.

People have come to expect world-class experiences from places like Glasgow Science Centre. Exhibits and visitor spaces must be attractive and robust. The thinking that goes into their design, and the knowledge that influences their content – the information that accompanies them – must be thorough, well-grounded and credible. We are proud of the centre, and its continuing evolution today.

Our design team have been involved in several key projects outside our home on Clydeside. For example, they designed the highly-praised Visitor Centre at Whitelee Wind Farm on the Fenwick Moor, now a popular attraction.

As Mercury reported last year, our designers also played a leading role in the design of an attractive and practical waiting area in the new Royal Hospital for Children next to the massive Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.

With all this in mind, we decided to take a look at the importance of design in developing and managing “experience”, and what it means to the general public.

This edition of Mercury features interviews with key people at Glasgow Science Centre, and news of an important new experience-led initiative at primary schools at a leading Scottish local authority, West Dunbartonshire.

We also talk to the team behind Europe’s latest science centre, Esplora, which is due to open this year as part of a £21m development on the site of a former Royal Navy hospital at Kalkara, Malta. Here in Glasgow we have contributed towards the launch of Esplora in the form of advice and help when its development team visited Scotland.

Again, success will depend on the experience on offer to visitors. As science takes centre stage in the debate about education and the economy, we must make it relevant to as many people as possible in order to make sure it is accessible and attractive to future generations of Scots. ••

People have come to expect world-class experiences from places like Glasgow Science Centre.

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Scotland has an important claim to design excellence, an approach that embeds thinking across a range of disciplines, from architecture to experience, and is being recognised increasingly across the UK and beyond. Apart from the historic architecture of our major cities, and particularly Glasgow and Edinburgh, design has underpinned almost every area of Scottish achievement, from history to the present day.

Clyde ship-builders stayed ahead of the pack, supplying nearly half of all ships plying the open seas at one stage in history, and they did so by innovation. This included engineering design – making ships bigger, faster and safer – that kept the massive industry ahead of its competitors for generations. The ships on display at the Riverside Museum on Clydeside, and even the little bit of history on display at the former Fairfield’s yard offices in Govan, celebrate that engineering prowess for which Scotland became famous during its heyday following the Industrial Revolution.

But many of the same vessels, and particularly the great liners such as Queen Mary and the two Queen Elizabeths, also traded on the concept of “experience”. During the 20th century the great Art Deco passenger areas of the liners – the dining areas and ballrooms – gave way to the slick and streamlined lay out of the QE2, launched in 1967.

It is this closeness in the concepts of design and experience that are the key to success for visitor attractions such as Glasgow Science Centre but also to many of the practical applications of creating places, events or attractions which are intended to engage people’s attention.

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Design has underpinned almost every area of Scottish achievement, from history to the present day.

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The impact of this can be intangible, difficult to identify, but there is no doubt of its significance. Glasgow School of Art – designed of course by one of the greats of architectural design, Charles Rennie Mackintosh – has become synonymous with the concept of design as experience. Apart from its magnificent academic record, it is recognised worldwide as a home for the daring, for people who will take chances in art and design. Not for nothing do so many Turner Prize finalists (and winners) come from an academic training at Garnethill.

Two GSA graduates, Janice Kirkpatrick and Ross Hunter, are currently marking 30 years’ operation of their influential design company, Graven. Many of the city’s notable developments – BBC Scotland at Pacific Quay, numerous bars and clubs and particularly the Merchant City – have included Graven designs.

On Tayside, the magnificent V&A Museum of Design Dundee is beginning to take shape at the heart of the city’s £1bn riverside re-development. Planned as an international centre of design for Scotland – the first custom-built design museum in the UK outside London – it will showcase Scottish design, as well as housing the world class touring exhibitions of the original Victoria & Albert Museum.

V&A Dundee – featuring a daring design by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma – will open in 2018. This £80m project is at the leading edge of current thinking around the design / experience concept. The selection of Dundee as its home in Scotland should be no surprise, though. Alongside Glasgow School of Art, Scotland includes leading art and design schools at Dundee and Edinburgh. Students learn amidst urban environments where design and architecture’s importance can be witnessed from the studio window: Edinburgh’s New Town, the Tay and Forth road and rail bridges, the post-industrial upper Clyde, and so on.

Glasgow School of Art Glasgow, Scotland

V&A Dundee (Architects view) Dundee, Scotland


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Modern design thinking has been embedded in society for many years. After years of neglect, there is a new appreciation of buildings such as the former St Peter’s College seminary building at Cardross, designed by the Glasgow architects Gillespie, Kidd & Coia, whose modern “brutalist” works in concrete are experiencing a new appreciation. St Peter’s is now undergoing a £5m refurbishment as an event space, amidst a new realisation of its remarkable ambience.

Even the building’s near-apocalyptic decline spawned a new approach to “urban art”, as the Financial Times found recently: “its failure has enabled a subsequent history of creative appropriation. Bored teenagers, addicts, artists, architectural tourists, free-runners, death-metal fans, psych geographers and assorted crazies have all left their marks”. So design and experience is at the heart of successful art, public service and commerce.

Think about how design plays a role in the growth of the Scottish beer company BrewDog. Its labels, its social media initiatives, and now its pubs are very “different” from the mainstream. Its fans can subscribe for shares in the company, get involved in the beer branding and brewing processes. It offers so much more than a pint of fizzy lager from a mainstream brewers, many of whom are scrambling to copy its style.

Ken McCulloch, a serial entrepreneur in the hotel and restaurant trade, is possibly one of Scotland’s most successful practitioners of “experience” in business. Recently celebrating his 50th year in the business, McCulloch has announced his return to Glasgow with the launch of an upmarket “Dakota Deluxe” development in the city centre.

McCulloch began by founding iconoclastic bars and restaurants such as La Bonne Auberge and Charlie Parker’s. He bought the Malmaison name for £100 and created a hotel chain of the same name. He refurbished famous places such as the Buttery and Rogano. His most recent success has been the development of the Dakota chain. “Glasgow is a very cultured city and a great city needs great hotels. What we do doesn’t date and it’s becoming more and more popular,” he said recently.

In nearly every example of classic design or the modern-day creation of memorable places and venues, the heart is in the experience of those who use the building or place in question.

We may not always appreciate that fact, but if many features were removed from the places we like to visit, we would notice it and feel some sense of loss. Design is vital in Scotland, and why not? This is the country that commissioned the incredibly daring Scottish Parliament building at Holyrood. Once synonymous with rows about cost and delivery, it is referred to more often today as a great place to visit. ••

St Peter’s Seminary Cardross, Scotland

9© Herald and Times Group

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Walk around the popular BodyWorks space at the top of Glasgow Science Centre and you will see people of all ages milling around, fascinated by this exhibit or that. Young couples test their strength or check their heart-rate, while youngsters race each other or make faces at an ultra-realistic model of a smoker’s lungs.

If you ever have to visit the new Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow, take a look at how the children there behave as they await their appointments. They find themselves in a colourful and happy atmosphere, replete with games, attractions and “secret” places where they can easily escape the idea that they are in a hospital.

At Whitelee Wind Farm Visitor Centre, there is a whole area devoted to exhibits that explain simply what renewable energy is all about. Families can engage with the information in an accessible way, without feeling they are being forced to learn something.

None of this happens by accident. The Science Centre Experience Development team – which put all of these attractions together – is a cross-disciplinary group that excels in creating spaces that place the user at the centre of everything.

“The heart of good design is the people who are going to use whatever it is you are working on; experience first,” comments Graham Rose, Creative Director. “It is less pragmatic and more emotional. People can come to the centre for a visit and to learn something. But we want to go beyond that, to get them enthralled, excited, inspired, to have their heads full of information and wanting to come back.

“In our case, our work is about embedding science and understanding of it into everything we do.”

Dr Robin Hoyle, Director of Science, agrees. “We are thorough in our approach. We can design at various levels. So if you visit but you don’t want your mind to be taxed too heavily, then OK you will not be. However if you want a challenge, to learn something independently or with a child, then there will be something for you.

“Life has changed. People expect to experience something. Look at the way cars are sold now. It is no longer about their mechanics or their paint finish, its about their brand value, about the demographic group at which they are targeted, about what the buyer perceives to be their ‘fit’ with the individual themselves.

“The car doesn’t sit in a garage until someone comes along and picks one. They are sold as part of a lifestyle.

The Science Centre design team is a cross-disciplinary group that creates spaces that place the user at the centre of everything.

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“It is about understanding people’s motivation. About how you engage and discover things for yourself. That is all part of the experience that we are creating. We recognise that each time we take up a project.”

The approach varies according to the content and direction of each project. So while BodyWorks has an organic sense about its exhibits, the centre’s latest exhibition – Powering the Future – is, in Rose’s words, “more mechanical” as it helps visitors to examine and understand the challenges of keeping the lights on in future.

The Glasgow approach is attracting attention from other science centres and museums, most recently from Copenhagen, Athens and Paris. So how do the team approach each task?

“Rather than presenting a didactic school of traditional museum experience we aim to add something more significant and broader. We aim to use cutting-edge ideas. We want to hook people in, and there are different routes to that” explains Graham Rose.

“Form follows function. Designers need a brief to start with, but for best results we will go back and forth with the client in order to add layers of understanding. We need to understand the constraints, which might be finance or physical space.”

Those different routes are fascinating. Individual visitors to Glasgow Science Centre exhibitions are often invited to involve themselves in the learning experience, and in quite an entertaining way. So in BodyWorks you might measure yourself or your abilities against a machine. In Powering the Future there is more of a deliberately scientific setting. A dance floor shows the link between electricity and light; a Scalextric board has its cars powered by energy physically generated by users.

For a more sophisticated experience, the user can role-play as the “energy minister” for a day, working on a dashboard that shows power generation across the country, and how to keep the lights on using the full range of power sources including nuclear, oil, gas and renewables.

It is about understanding people’s motivation. About how you engage and discover things for yourself.

Dr Robin HoyleDirector of Science

“Within the centre, we are working with relatively new concepts which are becoming more established in the professional realm,” reflects Graham Rose. “Of course it is all about making a demonstrable impact, in our case measured by increasing visitor numbers and also broadening the demography of our audience. We want to build on the idea of the science centre as an authority, a source of information as well as entertainment.”

With external commissions, the team take a similar approach. “The whole ethos and approach for the hospital project was distraction – giving children something interesting and absorbing to do, whether they were attending as patients, or as family members. The clear remit from our client, the Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity, was to provide that distraction and make young people’s hospital visits a better experience.”

Robin Hoyle leads the inter-disciplinary team, which includes Graham Rose, and his exhibition and design team Ailsa Arabi, Roisin Deary and Steven Hill, as well as education specialist Sharon McNab and Sharon Lyons.

The internal work has not stopped with Powering the Future. The team are currently looking at a major refurbishment of the centre café, having already “re-invigorated” the waiting area at the base of the Glasgow Tower, which re-opened nearly two years ago. They also have an eye on the future look of the science centre entrance-way, corporate events space, and its whole brand philosophy, so watch this space…

“By talking about the concept of experience with design we are really talking about how people encounter the physical space, and the content within. We look closely at how people move around the floors of the science centre, for example, and realise you cannot pre-determine all of it. We are telling people different stories at different times, and that has to be thought through,” says Robin Hoyle.

“We are spurred a little by comments from people who think the centre is ‘just for children’. We do think of the parents too, and other adult groups. That approach to design is what brings us success, and we want to build on that.” ••

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A ground-breaking initiative aimed at vastly improving children’s access to school science learning is being launched this summer at St Patrick’s primary in Dumbarton.West Dunbartonshire Council is the first Scottish local authority to take part in the creation of so called “STEM Hubs” across its primary schools, promoting science, technology, engineering and mathematics in order to improve Scotland’s record in these areas, and increase the number of secondary stage pupils studying these subjects.

The initiative fits with the ‘Curriculum for Excellence’ which created new objectives for teaching and schools across Scotland, with a child-centred approach to learning.

Glasgow Science Centre has been involved in much of the planning alongside West Dunbartonshire education officials and teaching staff. The authority has been experimenting with ideas to promote STEM, and St Patrick’s is a pilot from which it is hoped primary schools throughout the authority area can take inspiration.

In collaboration with education officials and teaching staff, the centre’s Experience Development team are creating a classroom space quite different from the conventional. When in opens in August, serving pupils of all ages from P1-P7, it will kick off a rolling

Many teachers see ‘knowledge’ as a barrier to engaging learners. Glasgow Science Centre’s Inspire and Challenge approach demystifies science.

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15programme that could eventually involve all 34 primaries across the authority, engaging around 7,000 pupils. The initiative began in late 2015 as part of the Scottish Attainment Challenge set by the Scottish Government within the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE).

For Dr Macnab, the centre’s Science Partnerships Manager, this is not just about a physical space. “It is much more than that. The STEM Hub is designed to inspire and also to challenge children’s science learning.”

She explains: “We need to give more teachers the confidence to be able to teach science, enabling pupils to develop as scientific thinkers. Many teachers see ‘knowledge’ as a barrier to engaging learners. Glasgow Science Centre’s Inspire and Challenge approach demystifies science, as it is a new way of thinking about it, through the ‘awareness approach’. It is about engaging with children, supporting discussion and group work, within a much more contemporary environment.”

The team adopted what it describes as “Glasgow Science Centre’s Inspire & Challenge Approach”. Aimed squarely at children, put simply it entails: » Get their attention » Engage them » Activate their “scientific awareness” so that they explore in order to know more » Strengthen awareness by concentrating on their use of language » Help them build a new narrative (collectively and individually)

“Here the teacher is more of a facilitator than a didactic in terms of approach,” adds Dr Macnab.

Laura Mason, West Dunbartonshire’s Chief Education Officer, is an enthusiastic supporter of the concept, and believes that children have to be inspired “in new ways” to achieve the goals of CfE and the STEM campaign.

“Our desire to go forward with the STEM Hub comes from the need to be transformational in approach,” she comments. “We have looked at the needs of young children as learners and also of their educators. The skills they will require for the jobs of the future are in the science and technology areas. Learning needs to be exciting and relevant.”

West Dunbartonshire, like many other authorities, is re-generating its approach, building new schools and “re purposing” older school buildings, as well as developing teachers’ skills and abilities. It is one of seven authorities within the Attainment Challenge.

Laura Mason explains that the Council had an existing working relationship with Glasgow Science Centre, and that the STEM Hub concept emerged from an otherwise routine discussion about STEM. “We were talking about the challenge of bringing science to life for children and it really all came from that. The science centre team are always willing to advise us, work with us. We have a strong working relationship.”

Apart from the physical design of the pilot classroom at St Patrick’s, the initiative also involves the content of the programme, and training for the teachers too. “Primary teachers can sometimes lack a little confidence with science, as they are normally teaching across subjects and it may seem a little daunting,” explains Laura Mason.

Staff at St Patrick’s have experienced what she describes as “intense professional learning” already. Two more local schools in Clydebank – St Joseph’s and Edinbarnet – will be next to host STEM Hubs along similar lines. The Balloch Campus, which will include a nursery and other facilities, will follow suit.

“We want to be ambitious for our young people. STEM will be a slow burn, in terms of achieving measureable success. But we have to take this new approach, to encourage children to work together in problem solving and experimentation.

“Our relationship with the science centre team is also about having children visit there regularly – it is an inspiring place.”

Encouraged by that, Sharon Macnab is looking forward to delivery of the St Patrick’s STEM Hub with mounting excitement, knowing that the project is being watched from near and far. “We are speaking to several other local authorities, and a lot of interest is coming, especially from the primary schools,” adds Dr Macnab. ••

Our relationship with the science centre team is also about having children visit there regularly - it is an inspiring place.

Laura MasonWest Dunbartonshire’s Chief Education Officer


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“People have to change their views of science. The myth of the individual boffin working alone and having ‘Eureka’ moments is inaccurate. Not even Isaac Newton did that: he engaged with others as he developed his thinking. Science is like that – a social space where people collaborate and learn from each other.”With that succinct comment, education consultant Robin Bartlett summarises the key thinking behind the development of “STEM Hubs” where children can discover science for themselves, and where teachers are facilitators rather than the conventional view of stuffing young minds with facts and hoping something good might come of it.

Bartlett has been advising Glasgow Science Centre as it develops the STEM Hub concept for local authorities including West Dunbartonshire.

As a high profile example of what he is talking about, he points to Geneva and the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider, the 16.8 mile particle accelerator built at a cost of more than £4bn. One of the most ambitious projects of its kind, the collider is intended to unravel some of the mysteries of the cosmos, and discovered the Higgs boson particle.

By its nature CERN is no place for individualistic “mad professors”, points out Bartlett. “Science is individually constructed, but socially negotiated. Look at CERN, it is very socially integrated. We need to be able to achieve the same in science learning.

“The STEM hub uses new technology wherever possible, for children to find out things. That ability to call up resources is part of the challenge, and opportunity.”

Bartlett has reached his conclusions after a lengthy career in education, consultancy and even overseas development. He has been an inspector of schools, an activist for developing countries, and worked extensively in Africa and the Middle East.

He says that the conventional role of science as “knowledge centred” means that it can be alienating to disadvantaged groups, or people who feel they cannot learn it. But science can be liberating too. “It has the great strength of being able to demonstrate the truth of things, for example that the Earth travels around the Sun and not vice versa, or that water changes density according to temperature,” adds Bartlett.

It’s about investigation, discussion, community. It’s about people exploring their own ideas. You can break down science learning and ‘democratise’ it.

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“Science is about investigation, discussion, community. It is about people exploring their own ideas, whether they are young children or teachers. You can break down science learning and ‘democratise’ it.

He believes that scientists are much more willing to listen to what people tell them about science being too “exclusive”. He advocates what he describes as “five awarenesses” – observational, relational, morphological, causal and categorical.

Observational awareness is how we discover new things simply by watching what is actually happening. For example, observational approaches include the discovery of the human genome, or simply watching the skies.

Relational awareness can be exemplified best by Newton’s theory of gravity, where we examine change. We can observe changes by changing inputs such as friction, steepness or weight. Morphological changes might come from model making, causal is about the awareness of what factors can provoke changes. Categorical awareness is about how we interpret data.

These concepts may seem complex in discussion. In practice they are actually happening all around us. “They cover every aspect of science. When we extend them we can make children better scientists.

“This is all about social learning. It enables teachers to be far more creative as they facilitate learning. We have reached a new approach to learning by taking from the science centre experience – how children pick things up and interpret what is going on, and so on.”

Bartlett believes the science centre’s “Inspire and Challenge” approach will work best when it involves teachers as much as children. “Teachers require a lot of support to feel confident about teaching science.

“It is often seen only as knowledge-based, with children generally treated as ‘little jugs to be filled’. Teachers have perceived it as the passing-on of scientific knowledge. This is a problem. With recent reforms to the curriculum in Scotland, teachers must look at the needs of the children themselves. We are only at an early stage, but the potential for radical change and success is definitely there”. ••

It enables teachers to be far more creative as they facilitate learning.

Robin BartlettEducation Consultant

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Experience counts in career choices

F E A T U R E A Glasgow Science Centre partnership with the careers agency Skills Development Scotland has “experience” at the heart of its approach.SDS manages careers development in schools across Scotland, and developed an exciting solution, My World of Work (MyWOW), several years ago.

The agency wanted to make the initiative more engaging and exciting for young people, and worked with the centre to create a widely praised ‘Careers Hub’ on the second floor, literally a “bringing alive” of the MyWOW concept within a physical space.

That sense of experience starts by working from the needs of the young people at the heart of the hub and then delivering events and services that will effectively engage them.

Now in its third year, the initiative is proving popular, and the partners have developed a “STEM Hub”, promoting science to secondary pupils, at Dumfries House near Cumnock in Ayrshire.

The STEM Hub exists to encourage youngsters to take up science at school and consider career opportunities in the science, technical and engineering areas. One attraction is DIY Gamer, an initiative aimed at introducing young people to software coding, designed in such a way to be interesting to them: computer games.

“What we have is a basic games console. The user can learn animation, starting at an elementary level and working up to full coding,” explains manager Susan Meikleham. “For example with a very popular mobile game like Flappy Bird, they can see the code behind the game and then learn how they can control that game. It helps kids understand how coding works.”

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19Susan heads a team based in the science centre and funded by SDS, including a project officer and five science communicators.

“The feedback to date is very good. Participants say they enjoy the experience very much. Are they looking more favourably at STEM-related careers? Initial research suggests yes,” says Susan.

“This is a long game but we have a challenge to improve the image of certain careers. It is achievable. You can stay in Scotland and have a career in STEM related work. There is demand for people in engineering, especially the energy sector, IT & digital.”

So how do the My World of Work team make sure the experience works for young people taking part in activities that are aimed ultimately at increasingly their knowledge of – and hopefully participation in – science related study or work?

“We have structured activities. Pupils don’t have to take jotters. They take part at a practical level from early on. It is complementary to what is happening in the classroom, but it is quite different in content. Our staff have to gauge the level that children are at and to work out how to pitch things to them. That is at the heart of developing an experience.’

The team take particular care to gauge the level of knowledge a group may be at, before pitching ideas. They will do so by asking preliminary questions, for example, what the group might know about renewable energy.

“We will get them to think about what is renewable and what is not. For example, is wave power renewable or not? If they struggle with that we have to take it back a level, perhaps to explain definitions. But if they tell you all about a new offshore project you know you can take it up a level. You have to listen to young people to work out their perceptions.

“When you get that level of challenge right, the kids can take over the flow of the session. A lot are social processes. People talk to each other and you encourage them to do so. It becomes a safe environment for them to talk and share ideas, ask questions. We need them to exercise these skills.”

Already she and her team are sure that their mission is reaping success. ••

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Europe’s latest science centre is shortly to open in the unique setting of a former Royal Navy hospital on Malta’s grand harbour near the island’s capital, Valletta.The hospital, at Villa Bighi in the town of Kalkara, was used by the Royal Navy for two centuries as a base for injured sailors on service in the eastern Mediterranean.

Bombed and damaged during World War 2, and closed down in 1970, it is receiving a new lease of life as a centre for science learning, aimed at every Maltese child and with the stated intention of improving the number of future science graduates.

The new centre – Esplora – will open in summer 2016. Its design is based on research of buildings and science centres all over the world. Glasgow Science Centre lent support to the Esplora team, and three groups were in Scotland earlier this year to learn some of the practical side of running a busy venue based on science.

The work shadowing was arranged when Esplora managers realised that its staff needed to see for themselves how things were run. Visits were also arranged to the Science Museum in London and Techniquest in Cardiff.

“The difference with Glasgow was that they sought to understand what we are about, and what we specifically needed to learn. The senior people at Glasgow – Dr Stephen Breslin, Dr Robin Hoyle and David McQueen – were very open and upfront with us,” comments Rachel Blackburn of the Malta Council for Science & Technology. “Glasgow has a lot of similarities in terms of programmes and linkages.”

Glasgow Science Centre lent support to the Esplora team in Scotland earlier this year to learn some of the practical side of running a busy venue based on science.

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“To date, Malta has had no such thing as a science centre. So we have been effectively starting from scratch. We have a wonderful site with really striking buildings so we have no doubt that we will attract many tourists, but we will ultimately be catering for every school pupil in Malta so we have to be sure that we have the right balance of interest.”

Like many small economies, Malta’s record of business research and development (R&D) spending is relatively low. But this small island nation is determined to improve on that, and on the number of skilled students it can produce in the “STEM” subjects. Malta, population 445,000, is dominated by small businesses, but it has also attracted foreign manufacturing investment in the past, such as Swiss based semiconductor manufacturer ST Micro, Malta’s biggest private sector employer with 1,500 staff.

Malta wants to do more in the life sciences and IT sectors, and is being encouraged by the European Union. The Esplora project is being run by the Malta Council for Science & Technology, and part financed by the European regional development fund (ERDF) under the Operational Programme 1 – Cohesion Policy 2007-13, Investing in Competitiveness for a Better Quality of Life, Co-financing rate: 85% EU Funds, 15% National Funds, Investing in Your Future.

“To some young people, science may have been seen in the past as ‘boring’. There is a big gap in the take-up of science subjects, and we are now addressing that problem. In advance of Esplora opening there is a high expectancy of what it can achieve. Families are really keen and interested. Esplora will be the hub for all science communications activity in Malta in future,” explains Rachel.

“Our relationship with Glasgow has been really fruitful and we hope it will continue. Our Chairman, Dr Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando is already looking to develop partnerships,” she adds. ••

Our relationship with Glasgow has been really fruitful and we hope it will continue.

Rachel BlackburnMalta Council Science & Technology


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The Crunch25th June – 14th August‘Our food, our health, our planet’ – the Crunch explores the relationship.

Planetarium LatesSaturday evenings across the yearTopical talks and presenter-led shows at 7pm every Saturday.

Glasgow Mela17th JulyGSC ‘On Tour’ attends a cultural festival in the heart of Glasgow.

Glasgow Schools return15th AugustMost pupils return to school.

Techfest28th August – 3rd SeptemberAberdeen and North East Scotland’s Festival of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

Venturefest1st SeptemberAiming to translate innovations and new technologies into economic growth.

Orkney Science Festival1st – 7th SeptemberGSC ‘on Tour’ team does science in spectacular surroundings.

Scottish Learning Festival20th – 22nd SeptemberEducation exhibition.

David Elder lecturesStarts SeptemberSecond season of expert lectures returns, with kind support of the Dept of Physics at University of Strathclyde.

September Holiday Weekend23rd – 26th September

Censis Technology Summit6th OctoberThe connected self, the connected community, the connected business. Technology and sensing in the connected world.

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From an unprepossessing building in Paisley, Scottish training company RSVP Design supply training services to a range of clients, large and small.

The company is run by three experienced trainers, used to facilitating workshops and doing hands‐on sessions with individuals and small groups of people across a range of businesses and other organisations.

So far, so familiar. But RSVP is a much more sophisticated organisation than that. It has effectively “productised” its training by creating support materials that can be used anytime, anywhere. And as a consequence it supplies customers all over the world, via the internet.

Many of its clients are well known to RSVP’s owners, Graham Cook, Ann Alder and Dr Geoff Cox. They travel across the UK and worldwide, taking workshops or “training the trainers” to implement a range of courses including management and leadership development, team building, and many of the activities familiar to human resources and training managers.

The difference is that the tools they use – sometimes as simple as a customised pack of cards or a series of puzzles – have been carefully developed and created as the company’s own intellectual property.

RSVP have worked with significant clients such as Cala Homes, Scottish Water and various universities familiar in Scotland. But their client roster also includes Apple (in California), Mars confectioners, TNT and Atlanta’s public school system in Georgia.

The company was created when Graham and Geoff realised they could work together to create something that was greater than the sum of its parts. “The first time I met Geoff, who is a very creative person, he turned up with a team game called Colour Blind, and asked everyone in the group to work together wearing blindfolds,” recalls Graham. “It was a bit of a culture shock, but it really worked well.

“Ann, whose background is education, came in with us and we started to develop games and devices we could use during hands‐on training, which we delivered in the form of consultancy, managing workshops and so on.

“The key thing for any training company is to find a formula that works, then find 1,000 potential customer that want the same thing. We wanted to sell our IP ‘in boxes’ rather than only selling consultancy hours. That was a real challenge, but it can be rewarding, if we can design something around the workshop experience, the tools people need to develop,

“This applies whether you are a one person business or a big corporation.”

Graham, RSVP’s managing director, works with his colleagues to develop new products as often as possible. Each has a different role. Graham may lead some initial research into the needs of the client, leaving the creative elements of developing a solution with Geoff, whose strength is in radical concepts.

In turn Ann will work with Geoff on his ideas, and try and build them into practical and useful educational tools. She and Graham might then work on how to develop the necessary products that support delivery, and to manufacture them at a cost which allows the company to make a profit.

It seems simple, but can be much more complex in its implementation. But the result is that RSVP – by concentrating on the experience of participants and working back to original design concepts – now has more than 70 products on sale online, vastly expanding the company’s influence and money earning potential.

“There are always interesting challenges. We develop ideas firstly by asking a client to describe the problem it wants to deal with. Often it is about changing behaviour, so can we replicate that problem and then work on ways to communicate solutions that can be brought about by people working with each other,” explains Graham.

“We have tools for teamwork, management and developing personal and inter-personal skills. Yes they are for learning but there also needs to be some level of enjoyment – adult learners need to know why they are doing something, so the process must be interesting enough to sustain them.”

In other words, design that doesn’t take into account the user’s experience is not really good or effective. The RSVP example underlines that assertion in a busy marketplace where its products are winning international respect. ••

The key thing for any training company is to find a formula that works.

F E A T U R E

TRAININGRSVP

ABOUT MERCURY Mercury is a print and online publication produced by Glasgow Science Centre to promote science issues in Scotland, to examine the factors facing scientists and engineers, and to profile leading thinkers in industry, government and academia.

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Mercury #15

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Transcript of Mercury #15