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SMART IRELAND
“Google and Icon have been supporters of the Science Gallery from the start,” says Gorman. “We needed industry partnerships to get the project off the ground and had good support from Wyeth [now Pfizer], Dell, Intel, IBM and others. Both Deloitte and Pfizer entered into new five-year commitments this year. Industry partners are really concerned about their pipeline of employees and their broader focus is that they find Steam very exciting. “In terms of the international rollout, Google has a deep
rooted love of science and of scaling projects, and board member in Ireland David Martin was keen on the idea of the Science Gallery being a model with the potential of being scaled. “We met with the Google team in London who were excited
by the idea – all they wanted us to do was cut our proposal down from three to two pages. We then had the opportunity to meet key people at Google headquarters in Mountainview, California, including co-founder Larry Page who came along to brainstorm. “After this trip the news came through that Google was supportive of taking the model global and we had our seed funding to develop the network.”
FIRST STOP LONDON The first international partner to sign up was King’s College London in 2012. It has received £7m in funding from the Wellcome Trust and Guy’s & St Thomas’ Charity to set up the Science Gallery there. Expected to open its doors in September 2015, the gallery will be in a highly visible location beside the Shard and opposite London Bridge tube station. “It is likely to have more of a focus on health
and biomedical research as it is also beside Guy’s Hospital. King’s College London is a world-class university, one of the top 30 in the
world. As well opening up opportunities to share exhibitions, connections are likely to emerge between researchers there and in Ireland,” says Gorman. Science Gallery is also in advanced discussions in Bangalore
with the Government of Karnataka and three research institutes – the Indian Institute of Science, the National Centre for Biological Sciences and the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology – as well as with Melbourne University in Australia. “We have generally been approached by international
universities interested in our model rather than proactively marketing the idea internationally. One of the things universities struggle with is how to engage the public with research and many are looking for new approaches,” Gorman notes.
“Many have museums, but what captured universities’
imagination with the Science Gallery is how it is focused on the future. The Grow your Own exhibition, for example, explores synthetic biology – the notion of designing living organisms to create next generation products. The gallery allows a university to make abstract, difficult areas relevant to the public particularly, as well as helping researchers to come up with innovations.”
A CREATIVE PLATFORM An important aspect of the Science Gallery in Gorman’s view is that it provides a creative platform for innovations that have relevance internationally. “We ran a project called Surface Tension
which looked at the future of water, examining issues such as scarcity and pollution. Part of the project involved engineering undergraduate students from TCD creating a way to cheaply disinfect water using sun and reflectors, thus eliminating bacteria and arsenic.
Dr Michael John Gorman, founding director, Science Gallery
26 INNOVATION IRELAND REVIEW Issue 7 Autumn/Winter 2013
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