Extra cash for MOSI as Manchester becomes science city

THE Government has committed an extra £3m to the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester to co-incide with the city’s designation as European City of Science.

Manchester will hold the title until 2016 when it will host a major international science conference, the EuroScience Open Forum (ESOF).

Chancellor George Osborne was at the official launch at the museum this morning with the physicist Professor Brian Cox.

Mr Osborne announced a grant of £3m for exhibition space at the museum which was threatened with closure last year due to a funding crisis at its parent organisation, the Science Museum Group.

Director Sally MacDonald said the money will be used to create a “stunning exhibition gallery” in the basement of the railway warehouse building.

A number of science events are being prepared including the Manchester International Festival (MIF) curated “Age of Starlight”, led by Prof Cox, which will invite audiences to face the “biggest questions about our existence”.

ESOF is expected to bring 4,500 delegates to Manchester in July 2016, and generate around £8.3m for the economy. Attendees will include global scientific and technology leaders, researchers and policy makers.

Prof Cox said: “The fact that Manchester is the European City of Science means a great deal. It means the city is regaining its historic role – this is of course the city that discovered the atomic nucleus and that built the world’s first computer – now it’s the city that discovered graphene and with the newly announced Sir Henry Royce Institute for materials research, Manchester might well be at the centre of an industrial revolution of the 21st Century. To see the city re-emerging, in what I would call its rightful place, is terrifically exciting.”