Behind the scenes: A museum full of research

The UMU (University Museum Utrecht) is all about academic research of the past and present. For the new museum we collaborated with various researchers from Utrecht University. In the room ‘Look, us animals’ one of the interactions is about the joint research of biologist Liesbeth Sterck and child psychologist Marjolijn Vermande on social behaviour of monkeys and children. They talk about the process and their motivations for participating in this interaction.

Not the outcomes, but the process of research is key at UMU. Doing research the way researchers do is an important premise of all the interactive components in the museum. The museum staff make this accessible in a fun and educational way by using ludo-didactics: learning by playing. Together with researchers, they look for aspects of the research that connect with everyday life or arouse curiosity. Then, together with designers, they turn it into an educational interaction. Researchers are involved from start to finish in creating the exhibit.

Monkeys and children

In the exhibit that Liesbeth and Marjolijn collaborated on, visitors can investigate the behaviour of humans and animals. They do this in the same way as the researchers, namely by observing behaviour. Visitors watch videos of monkeys and children and try to recognize their behaviour through observation. The behaviour they observe is compared to the behaviour the researchers saw.

“If I get a request about interpreting research and I can say something about it from my field, I cooperate,” Liesbeth says. They also hope to give insightful content to visitors. “My research is shifting,” Marjolijn explains. “First I dealt with aggression and bullying, now it is shifting more towards positive social behaviour and this exhibition fits in very nicely with that.”

I have a fantastic area of expertise and love to tell people about it.

“In both the research with monkeys and in the research with children we show that you can achieve your goals in different ways,” Liesbeth adds. “You can do that with aggression and with nice behaviour. I hope museum visitors see that you can do different things to have your way.”

Not too simple

An exhibition is a great way to showcase resarch, and both Liesbeth and Marjolijn are pleased with the results. Getting your research across properly and adding the right nuance, though, is a process that takes time and requires a lot of coordination between the researchers and the designers. “I found out that we don’t see things so black and white. I understand that everything has to be very clear to the visitors, but when I tell it myself I can do it with a little more nuance,” Marjolijn said.

Liesbeth: “It is great to see how the museum staff and the designers translate our work into a form and a story that is appealing to a wide audience. The way you tell something and simplify it even further without doing harm to the content, there is always a bit of friction in between, but we came out of that very well. It’s crucial that you keep talking back and forth. We didn’t oversimplify either.” Marjolijn adds: “As scientists, we are very precise and designers are very creative. Designers help to articulate it clearly for the audience. We hadn’t thought of it that way beforehand.”

UMU targets families with children ages 8 to 14. A very different target group than students and peers. Liesbeth: “I really enjoy making something for adults and children. I sometimes think that elementary school children seem to understand more than some first-year university students. You can ask them questions and often they come back with really great ideas and thoughts.”

Prof. Liesbeth Sterck is professor of Biology at the Faculty of Science
Dr Marjolijn Vermande is associate professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences

Text: Marieke Verhoeven