The London Science Museum has formally ended its long-standing partnership with BP, drawing a curtain on one of the most scrutinised corporate sponsorships in British cultural life. The move, confirmed on Friday by the Science Museum Group, has been hailed as a “seismic shift” by campaigners who spent years demanding the institution cut its financial links with the oil and gas giant.
The decision relates specifically to the Science Museum Group Academy, a training and resource initiative launched in 2018. BP’s sponsorship of the academy will conclude on Monday 31 August, at the natural end of its contracted term, according to both parties.
A Partnership Under Fire
BP’s relationship with the Science Museum stretches back decades, and for nearly as long it has attracted fierce criticism from climate campaigners, educators and environmental groups. Opponents accused the company of exerting an “insidious influence” over the way science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) were presented to the British public, particularly to young people.
The campaign group Culture Unstained has been among the most vocal critics, organising protests inside the museum itself, including demonstrations in the institution’s energy gallery against sponsorships from BP, Equinor and Adani Green Energy.
Chris Garrard, a director of Culture Unstained, welcomed the decision but described it as only a “partial victory.” He accused BP’s stated commitment to climate action of being worthless in practice, and criticised the museum’s outgoing director, Sir Ian Blatchford, for championing the partnership “year after year.”
“BP’s commitment to climate action was never worth the paper it was written on, but the Science Museum’s director passionately championed his partnership with the major polluter year after year,” Garrard said. “Now, with the world facing droughts and wildfires and BP recklessly ramping up its production of dirty fossil fuels, the museum has finally come to its senses and followed the rest of the culture sector in cutting ties to BP.”
The Museum’s Defence
Sir Ian Blatchford, director and chief executive of the Science Museum Group, struck a markedly more grateful tone. He said BP’s “generous contributions helped us to inspire more than 11,000 education, museum and science professionals through research-informed science engagement training, supporting vital work to spark curiosity and bring science to life for more than 1 million young people across the country.”
A spokesperson for BP confirmed the separation was taking place at the end of the agreed contractual period. The company did not elaborate on its reasons for not renewing.
The academy itself provides training and resources to teachers, museum practitioners and Stem professionals both in the UK and internationally. Its work, by the museum’s own account, has reached more than a million young people since its inception.
A Pattern of Sponsorships Cut
The decision does not exist in isolation. In 2024, the Science Museum cut ties with Norwegian energy company Equinor, citing its failure to reduce carbon emissions in line with the Paris climate agreement’s target of limiting global heating to 1.5C.
That move placed the museum ahead of many of its cultural peers, and the BP departure now continues what appears to be a deliberate repositioning. It also reflects a wider trend across Britain’s cultural sector, with galleries, festivals and orchestras increasingly re-evaluating relationships with fossil fuel companies as public concern over the climate crisis intensifies.
But the campaigners are not satisfied. The Science Museum continues to receive funding from Adani Green Energy Ltd, a subsidiary of the Adani Group, one of the world’s largest privately owned coal mining and energy conglomerates. Culture Unstained has made clear that pressure on the museum will continue until that arrangement, too, is reconsidered.
What Comes Next
The end of BP’s sponsorship leaves a significant funding gap. The Science Museum Group has not yet announced a replacement partner for the academy, and questions remain about how the institution will sustain the training programmes that BP’s money supported.
For Blatchford, who has long defended the necessity of corporate partnerships in funding publicly accessible science education, the end of the BP deal represents a notable change of direction. Whether it signals a broader rethink of the museum’s approach to fossil fuel sponsorship, or simply the natural conclusion of an expiring contract, remains to be seen.
For now, campaigners are claiming a hard-fought win, even as they prepare for the next battle over Adani. The museum, for its part, must balance its public-facing mission to promote science with the financial realities of operating one of the country’s most visited cultural institutions.
Why it Matters
The Science Museum’s decision to part ways with BP is more than a contractual footnote. It marks another significant breach in the wall between Britain’s cultural institutions and the fossil fuel industry, and it validates years of grassroots protest from educators, parents and activists who argued that an institution dedicated to inspiring future scientists had no business taking money from one of the world’s largest polluters. With climate extremes intensifying and public scrutiny of corporate sponsorship sharper than ever, the museum’s next steps, particularly over its remaining Adani partnership, will be watched closely by campaigners and cultural sector peers alike.