Photo: Håkon Bergseth For over 100 years we have been a museum for everyone. We are responsible stewards of our cultural heritage for industry, science, technology and medicine. Our vision is to be Norway's most visible, bold and dialogue-oriented museum. It is a vision to be both proud of and humbled by. There is no doubt that it is tough and demanding to be a leader in the museum industry in Norway, and we have set a clear compass course into the future.
We will continue to manage our heritage with respect and conduct research at the forefront of development. We will create exhibitions to give the public the best visitor experiences, the best learning and we will surprise with forward-looking communication technology.
It was with great humility that I took over the helm of the museum in the spring of 2018, and I look forward to continuing the great work that has already been done over many years. At the same time, we will strengthen activities around what really sets us apart from others - our completely unique object-based exhibitions and collections. We will make these even more accessible through constantly new channels. We are also a science center that already offers a large degree of interactivity to our visitors. In 2018, we had a successful trial project with teaching for high-achieving students and with grants from the Ministry of Education, the investment will be continued in 2019. Our goal going forward is to give even more schoolchildren a journey in innovation, creative joy and coding. From 2019, we will also participate in the national project The technological school bag . We will teach coding to 3,000 students annually, with a proportion of these to be reached outside the schools.
In this report you can see who we are and what we do. From 2018, I would particularly like to highlight the opening of the FOLK exhibition, which deals with everything a museum can and should be. Here we set the agenda with research, touch on an important topic, deliver a great exhibition and exciting communication. We also took over two large and important gatherings last year. Final merger with Telemuseet's added a collection of 20,000 objects, 450,000 photographs and an extensive archive. At the same time, we have taken over more than 1,300 items from NRK's technical-historical collection to safeguard their history. Another highlight is our brand new vestibule and museum shop with steampunk elements, stylish interior and a unique selection of goods that creates a completely new experience for the public from the second they enter our museum walls.
In the next few years, we will fulfill the biggest promise for our permanent exhibitions in over 30 years. The National Medical Museum will be renewed and modernized and over half of the exhibition will be upgraded until 2020. At the same time, we will create a brand new ICT exhibition and renew everything within IT, telecommunications, the Internet and broadcasting until 2021. In 2019, the largest temporary investment will be the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing 1969-2019.
Everything to create the best museum experience.
Greeting
Frode Meinich,
director at The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology