Written evidence submitted by the Royal Institution of Great Britain
Introduction
The Royal Institution of Great Britain (The Royal Institution, Ri) is responding to this inquiry in order to share our experiences of widening public access and improving the carbon footprint of our Grade 1 listed central London heritage building.
Our purpose
Our charitable purpose at the Royal Institution is to bring the public and scientists together to share their interest and passion for science. We believe there should be equitable access to science, and that people’s desire to engage with science and scientists should be nourished.
The Ri is an independent charity (Registered charity no. 227938) funded through a mixture of earned income, donations, membership fees, grants and corporate support (we do not receive any core Government funding).
Our history
Our building and collections are of international significance. The Royal Institution was founded in 1799 and quickly became one of the best quipped research laboratories in Europe, home to some of the leading scientific figures of the time such as Humphry Davy, Michael Faraday, John Tyndall, James Dewar, William Bragg, Lawrence Bragg and, more recently, George Porter. The scientific discoveries they made included ten chemical elements, the miners safety lamp, the electric motor, transformer and generator, the field theory of electromagnetism, the ‘thermos’ flask, the liquification of hydrogen, the fundamentals of x-ray crystallography and of high speed photochemical reactions. The applications of these discoveries range from electrical engineering to molecular biology to laser therapies for cancer. In total fourteen researchers at the Royal Institution have won a Nobel Prize.
Among the most remarkable items in our extensive collections are the original apparatus used in the work that took place here, along with archives, iconographical materials and furniture. The collections are especially significant for being in the same building in which they were produced and used.
Our building
The Royal Institution’s premises have architectural significance in their own right as two eighteenth century townhouses at 20 and 21 Albermarle St, the latter of which includes a Grand Staircase almost certainly constructed to the design of John Carr in the 1770s. The original conversion in the early 1800s produced lecture theatres, laboratories, libraries, workshops and display areas as well as domestic living quarters, offices and other necessary infrastructure. A Corinthian columned façade was added in 1837 and further laboratories were installed in the 1850s and again in the 1890s. Following an electrical substation explosion in 1927, the entire northern end of number 21 - including the main lecture theatre - was reconfigured based on the designs of Leonard Rome Guthrie. Refurbishments in the 1960s-70s led to the Faraday Museum and an Archives Room and in the mid-2000s, a Heritage Lottery Funded redevelopment opened up more of the building for public use.
Our current work
While much of the heritage merit of the Royal Institution is derived from the scientific research, it has also had an important role in disseminating scientific knowledge, and this continues today.
During the year ending 30 September 2024:
1. What are the most significant challenges facing owners and operators of built heritage assets, and how are they affecting what those sites can offer?
Our goal is for our building to continue to be a place where people and scientists can come together – as they have been doing in this building for 226 years – to share their interest and passion for science. We are committed to remain open to the public, but it is challenging.
Our most significant challenge is a lack of resource to be able to continue to invest in the upkeep and improvement of our heritage building. Work on heritage buildings – ours and others – is extremely expensive because it requires trades that are in short supply, materials that are more expensive than in non-heritage buildings, and there are costs for surveys and approvals is. This is true even for standard maintenance and repair, as well as for more significant projects such as improving energy efficiency. Even displaying more of our historic collections with our exhibition is costly as we need to use high quality, bespoke displays and cases.
The Ri is unique in being a site for science’s past, present and future, all together. Our building contains a theatre, a museum, an archive, a teaching laboratory for school groups, and several laboratories for experimental research – all within the 56,000 sq. ft of 20-21 Albermarle St. Because of our distinctive combination of functions, we often fail to meet the criteria for public funding directed to any one of these functions alone. Yet the combination is itself valuable; each activity or group is enhanced by the presence of the others.
Additionally, there is, in our view, a lack of government support for preserving and opening up access to historic science sites – i.e. sites where scientific invention and discovery was actually carried out - compared with other sites of historic interest.
Remaining open to the public is especially important in our area of London – Mayfair – where the vast majority of buildings are privately owned, with entirely commercial purposes. Across the country we have suffered a significant reduction of the public sphere in recent decades (with the closing down of libraries, community centres, leisure facilities, etc). This area has very little in the way of ‘public sphere’ spaces, so our work bringing thousands of people – families, schoolchildren, scientists of international renown and others – to this area of London is much-needed.
Some visitors have particular needs around physical disabilities and the challenges of ensuring heritage buildings are as accessible as possible is well-recognised. An independent accessibility audit compiled in February 2023 by disability specialist Purple Zest made over 200 separate recommendations for improving the accessibility of the Royal Institution building. Several of them have already been implemented such as improved signage. But many require changes to the fabric of the building such as changes to stairs, flooring, and doorways which will require additional resources. We were fortunate to receive a modest £5k funding from the Rose Foundation for improvements to our toilets and front door, but there is much more work still to be done.
3.a) How can heritage buildings be supported to increase energy efficiency and contribute to the Government’s net zero targets?
With support gratefully received from the Greater London Authority (GLA), we are implementing ‘Project FootpRint’ to reduce our building’s carbon usage by at least 35% within two years. We are currently in the latter stages of obtaining planning consent but we hope – subject to those consents - to be able to install one or more air source heat pumps on the roof in order to reduce our reliance on gas for heating and cooling. This will also require replacement of all our radiators and much of the interconnecting pipework, replacement of our building’s management system, and improvements to our thermal insulation. Additional improvements have been scoped in the hope that our budgets will allow for them, such as solar glazing to reduce unwanted loss heat/gain through our windows.
We hope that our experience of retrofitting a Grade 1 listed building can be used as a case study to help others, in line with our charitable objects about “teaching…the application of science for the common purposes of life” (from our Royal Charter of 1800).
We would be very happy to supply further details of Project FootpRint if the Committee would find it useful.
Suggestions that might help the Ri and others to maintain their heritage buildings and increase their energy efficiency and contribute to net zero targets include:
- Support with the costs of planning retrofitting work
- Funding – for example, through Heritage England or Local Authorities – for delivery of maintenance, improvements, refurbishment and retrofitting
- Access to free/discounted high quality planning/modelling skills and services
- Additional support for buildings that are open to the public
- Energy price cap for heritage buildings transferring from gas to electricity as their main/sole energy source
- Funding and VAT exemptions specifically for the costs of works to improve energy efficiency