Science Gallery going global after €1m investment

The parent company of Dublin's Science Gallery has received an investment of more than €1 million, including a donation of €450,000 from the US-based Cordover Family Foundation.

An additional €700,000 was secured from an anonymous donor.

Science Gallery International (SGI), a non-profit company based at Trinity College Dublin where the original gallery is located, will use the funding to support the development of a global science gallery network.

The funding builds on an investment of €1 million provided by Google's philanthropic arm, Google. org, in 2012.

The development of the global science gallery network will see seven new galleries created in partnership with leading universities in urban centres of technological and cultural innovation around the world by 2020, based on the approach first pioneered at Trinity College Dublin.

Bangalore

The first new gallery will open at King’s College London in 2017, followed closely by Science Gallery Bangalore, in partnership with the government of Karnataka and the Indian Institute of Science. Plans are also at an advanced stage to establish a gallery in Australia by 2018.

“We have full confidence that SGI will succeed in making an important difference to millions of young adults in their search to understand the world around them, and look forward to following the expansion of the Global Science Gallery Network as we approach 2020,” American philanthropist Ron Cordover of the Cordover Family Foundation said.

Chief executive to step down

SGI has also announced that Dr

Michael John Gorman

, who has led the development of Science Gallery since its inception in 2007, will step down as chief executive officer next year.

Dr Gorman is moving to a new role as professor at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and founding director of the Bavarian Museum of Life Sciences and Natural History.

He will remain involved with Science Gallery, becoming founding chairman of the executive council of the Global Science Gallery Network, where he will work directly with the directors of each gallery in the emergent network.

SGI chairman Chris Horn said Mr Gorman has played a key role in securing this funding, and the development of both the Science Gallery concept and Network over the past eight years.

“He has championed the need to bring art and science together to inspire young adults worldwide, and positioned SGI to achieve its vision of eight galleries worldwide by 2020,” Mr Horn said.

Led by Mr Horn, the SGI board has established a search committee to identify a new chief executive, who is expected to be in place within the first half of 2016.