From cosmos to classroom: National Lottery Open Week meets British Science Week

The Science of National Lottery Open Week 2026

Up in the Highlands, at Hugh Miller's Birthplace Cottage, a unique letter written by Charles Darwin is going on display. Miller himself was a natural history expert, so the museum features artefacts, fossil finds, manuscripts, a shepherd's plaid and a stonemason’s mallet. Visitors can also get hands-on with fossils in the interactive handling collection. The National Trust for Scotland is offering free entry, one adult per National Lottery ticket.

Meanwhile in the West Midlands there’s 50% off entry to Thinktank, Birmingham Science Museum.

And here’s a handful of space-focused sites saying thanks to National Lottery players for raising funds that go to good causes like theirs:

Armagh Observatory and Planetarium is on board for the National Lottery Open Week 2026 mission – offering 50% off dome shows through 15th March, and 50% off the telescope observatory tour on 14th March.

Aerospace Bristol is offering players a free tour of the Conservation in Action Workshop through 13th March.

And The National Space Centre, Leicester - celebrating its 25th year - is offering boosters to any ticket bought for the day – upgrading it to a Free Annual Pass, as well as adding a 30-minute presenter-led 'tour of the night sky' in the UK’s largest planetarium at no extra charge.

Spotlight on Space Science

Everything from major builds like the National Space Centre, to local Astronomy Societies and other scientific good causes have been awarded funds raised by National Lottery players.

Chas Bishop, CEO of The National Space Centre, Leicester, reflects on The National Lottery’s two grants (total £33m) that let the Leicester site blast off 25 years ago:

“The site [for the Space Centre] was a sewage works - it smelled terrible. It took something seismic to turn it into something useful. If it wasn't for National Lottery funding...”

Deep impacts

Like other good causes funded by The National Lottery, The National Space Centre has an array of positive results, and real impacts.

As well as being a key piece of infrastructure for Space Science in the UK, the Centre has helped spark local regeneration:

“For ten years we were on our own in the sewage works,” Chas explains, “with a lot of hope that the wider site would be brought into industrial use, that we would be the catalyst. Wind the clock forward, today we’ve got something like 80 companies on site.”

What’s more, diverse impacts are being racked up the Centre each year. “We’ve had over 6 million visitors since 2001,” says Chas. “In 2024 alone, 16,000 students visited of whom 15,000 were given free provision.”

Chas is clear on why we should all care about space and having a National Space Centre:

“We couldn't live without space. You have used space, probably, a dozen times today without thinking about it. It’s the framework which allows not just Sat Nav but communications, banking, insurance, everything we rely on, day-to-day.”

‘Sci’ highlights in The National Lottery's history

Of course, there’s much more to science than space. From Astronomy Clubs to Zoological Societies – funds for good causes raised by The National Lottery have answered the call. From Royal Society ‘rock star scientists’ to citizen scientists; doing science or teaching science at universities and in communities all over the UK from the Shetland Isles to the Isles of Scilly.

Since that first ever science-based grant in spring 1995, a constellation of funding has exploded across the UK. Fast approaching 30,000 science-related projects, places or people.

A wide spectrum of science

What ties together The National Space Centre with cancer therapy? Or The Natural History Museum’s Darwin Centre with drug repurposing for rare diseases? How about the missing link between Lindow Man and leukaemia research?

All have been among the recipients of National Lottery funds (1995-2025). From major buildings to school trips or science club apparatus. The three-decades long National Lottery ‘experiment' has produced great results in scientific fields.

Here’s a dozen funding highlights:

• The Eden Project, living and breathing environmental science, and awarded various National Lottery grants totalling over £175m since 1997.
• Groundwork UK (The Federation of Groundwork Trusts) science-backed projects all over the UK, totalling over £170m since 1995.
• Natural England, a great variety of biodiversity and environmental benefits, over £107m since 1999.
• The Science Museum Group, over £67m since 1995, including a grant of £23m for The Science Museum (London) Wellcome Wing in 1996.
• Kew Gardens (Royal Botanical Gardens, London) over £50m since 1999.
• Glasgow Science Centre, Scotland, over £37m since 1997.
• The University of Manchester, over £35m since 1997 including over £12m in 2015 for its First Light exhibition space at Jodrell Bank, the radio astronomy observatory founded in 1945 in Cheshire.
• The National Space Centre, Leicester, over £32m since 1998.
• Natural History Museum, London, over £32m since 1995, for which The Darwin Centre had the largest single grant, £20m in 2001.
• National Botanic Garden of Wales, over £26m since 1996.
• Belfast City Council, one of its major grants has been over £23m in 2008 for the Connswater Community Greenway, an environmental science driven 'green corridor' alongside the Connswater, Knock and Loop rivers from the Castlereagh Hills to Belfast Lough. The Greenway set out to provide 5km of cleaned rivers, 43 new bridges, 19km of cycle and walkways, improved and connected green and open spaces, a public square, heritage trails and a 9km linear park through East Belfast.
  

Of course, National Lottery grants - in all walks of life, not just science - are an ever-expanding universe.

The running total of grants awarded to science-focused buildings, facilities; funds backing key organisations; funding research, driving engagement projects, and boosting education of all kinds of science is rocketing on upwards, glimpsing sight of £3 billion.

That’s a gigantic galaxy of impact, all thanks to National Lottery players.