Science Museum Group

The Science Museum Group operates five UK science and technology museums: the Science Museum (London), the Science and Industry Museum (Manchester), the National Railway Museum (York), the National Science and Media Museum (Bradford), and Locomotion (Shildon). The group provides an open Collection API giving developers programmatic access to over 7 million objects, people, and documents in the museum collections via a JSONAPI-compliant REST interface. The API is free to use and supports searching, filtering, and retrieval of collection items with rich metadata, images, and curatorial notes.

Science Museum Group publishes 4 API contracts indexed on the APIs.io network, including Documents API, Objects API, People API, and 1 more. Tagged areas include Museums, Collection, Cultural Heritage, Open Data, and Science.

The Science Museum Group catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 2 Spectral governance rulesets.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Profile data on GitHub

26.5/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 26/100 agent aware Front door AI 1/6 silent Heartbeat 68/100 alive self hosted · MIT Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0 · Show this score on your site →

AccessFreemium

1 published contract

Museums Collection Cultural Heritage Open Data Science Technology United Kingdom

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-11-06 · rubric v0.27.0

Composite quality — 26.5/100 · thin

Contract Quality 11.4 / 19

Developer Ergonomics 1.4 / 15

Access Clarity 1.2 / 15

Operational Transparency 1.0 / 10

Contract Governance 2.5 / 9

Discoverability 5.0 / 8

Regulatory Posture 1.6 / 15

Open Source Surface 0.0 / 10

Agent readiness — 26/100 · agent aware

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

Documented Reversibility 6 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10

Idempotency 9 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 7 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 4 / 4

Delegated User Identity 0 / 6

Protected Resource Metadata 0 / 5

Registration Without a Human 0 / 6

Agentic Commerce Well-Known Document 0 / 5

Pagination 5 / 5

Distinct Operations 3 / 3

MCP Tool Quality 6 / 6

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Government & Public Sector regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

Open Source Surface applies to this provider. This product is open source and we read its repository directly, so Open Source Surface carries 10 points of the composite. It is scored from what the repository actually publishes — a security policy, a contribution guide, a release history, a code of conduct — read live from the provider rather than inferred from our own catalog pointers. This facet adds; nothing was taken away to make room for it. An open-source project is not excused from the commercial facets, because exemption would strip it of the points it does earn. If we have the wrong repository, or this product is not open source, say so on your provider repo and we will drop the facet rather than have you publish against it.

Create-or-Update Ergonomics does not apply to this provider. The published contracts declare no write operations, and a read-only API cannot create-or-update. The facet is excluded from this provider's denominator entirely — not scored zero. A reference or data API is not deficient for being unable to upsert.

The six quality facets above are damped to 75 points between them, because both conditional facets apply and carry 25 points together. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 75% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

Show this score on your site.

It updates itself when the score changes. Paste this where you link to your API docs:

<a href="https://apis.io/providers/science-museum-group/"><img src="https://apis.io/badge/science-museum-group/card.svg" alt="Science Museum Group on APIs.io — Kin Score by API Evangelist"></a>

Other styles, a README pill and a shields.io endpoint are on the badge page.

Raise your score.

Agent readiness — checks not met, largest first (exact, from this profile):

MCP Server +12 pts — deployment.mode + probe verdict on the mcp/ manifest, not the pointer; an unprobed slug falls back to authorship
Machine-Readable Auth +10 pts — a served openid-configuration/oauth-authorization-server carrying `issuer` (served), else the securitySchemes class in the provider OpenAPIs — bound (mutualTLS, DPoP, Signature) > negotiable (oauth2 authorizationCode/clientCredentials, openIdConnect) > bearer (http bearer, apiKey)
Stable Error Semantics +8 pts — OpenAPI $refs a shared error schema across 4xx/5xx responses (verified), else common[].type includes ErrorCatalog / ErrorCodes / DeclineCodes
A2A Agent Card +8 pts — a2a/-a2a.yml manifest, graded on conformance.grade against A2A 1.0.0
Registration Without a Human +6 pts — a `registration_endpoint` in the served RFC 8414 / OIDC discovery document
Delegated User Identity +6 pts — a served discovery document listing authorization_code in grant_types_supported (served), else an oauth2 authorizationCode flow or openIdConnect declared in an OpenAPI (documented)

6 more unmet checks in the Agent Readiness table above.

Kin Score — facets with the most composite points still available (weight × headroom):

Access Clarity scores 7.9 — up to +18.4 composite points
Developer Ergonomics scores 9.5 — up to +18.1 composite points
Operational Transparency scores 10.5 — up to +11.6 composite points

Each check links to what satisfies it. Publish the artifact, or tell us where it already lives, and the score moves on the next scoring run.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. Every facet and dimension name above is a link: it opens that measurement's own page — what it means, the exact checks that feed it, how the whole catalog distributes on it, and the providers at the top of it. This rating is computed from the provider profile at artifacts.apis.io/science-museum-group/apis.yml: open an issue on github.com/api-evangelist/science-museum-group to ask a question or point us at an artifact you publish. Submit an artifact on GitHub — free → Manage your own listing — the Influence plan, $499/mo →

Markets this provider is in provisional

The Kin Score Market layer reads a provider inside its market: its position, and how deep its integrations go. Depth is only comparable within a position. Provisional and unweighted: not part of the Kin Score or agent readiness.

Market	Position	Depth	Registered MCP server	Declares compatibility
IIIF and Cultural Heritage (GLAM image interoperability, Linked Art)	undeclared	-	-	-

Registered MCP server and declares compatibility are report only — not weighted. Undeclared means we found nothing we can read, so there is no number: we never infer integrations.

Standards implemented 1

Standards this provider implements or carries. De facto ones are profiled and measured by the API Commons; formal ones come from the standards directory and are linked by the provider's own tags. The evidence column says how each claim was established — not that it was made.

OpenAPI

measured — observed by APIs.io (published)

APIs 4

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Science Museum Group Documents API

Documents, archives, and written records in the collection

Science Museum Group Objects API

Scientific instruments, industrial artifacts, and cultural items in the collection

Science Museum Group People API

People associated with the museum collections including makers, scientists, and historical figures

Science Museum Group Search API

Full-text and filtered search across all collection types

Open Collections 5

Open, tool-agnostic API collections (OpenAPI-derived and Bruno).

Science Museum Group Collection API

OPEN COLLECTION

Science Museum Group Collection Documents API

OPEN COLLECTION

Science Museum Group Collection Documents Objects API

OPEN COLLECTION

Science Museum Group Collection Documents People API

OPEN COLLECTION

Science Museum Group Collection Documents Search API

OPEN COLLECTION

Science Museum Group API pricing

Not yet checked against Science Museum Group's own pricing page. Compiled by API Evangelist on 2026-05-04; confirm before you rely on a figure. A free plan or tier is listed.

Plan	Price
Free freemium	Free
Professional paid	Free
Enterprise enterprise	—

Plan details, limits and sources →

Rate limits

Free Tier Default: 10 requests per minute
Free Tier Monthly Quota: 1000 requests per month
Professional Tier Default: 100 requests per minute

Compiled by API Evangelist, not yet checked against Science Museum Group's documentation. All 5 limits →

Pricing Plans 1

Published pricing tiers and plan structures.

Science Museum Group Plans Pricing

3 plans

PLANS

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Science Museum Group Rate Limits

5 limits

RATE LIMITS

Service Levels 1

Uptime the provider promises or reports, as SLA4OAI. Read from its own pages; APIs.io runs no monitors.

Science Museum Group

SLA

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

Science Museum Group Finops

FINOPS

Semantic Vocabularies 1

JSON-LD contexts and semantic vocabularies used across these APIs.

Science Museum Group Context

23 classes · 19 properties

JSON-LD

Spectral Rules 2

Spectral governance rulesets for linting and validating these APIs.

Science Museum Group — jsonschema rules

5 rules · 4 warnings 1 info

SPECTRAL

Science Museum Group API Rules

10 rules · 3 errors 7 warnings

SPECTRAL

JSON Schema 1

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

Science Museum Group Collection Object

5 properties

JSON SCHEMA

JSON Structure 1

JSON Structure definitions describing this provider's data shapes.

Science Museum Group Collection Object Structure

0 properties

JSON STRUCTURE

Examples 2

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

Science Museum Group Get Object Example

3 fields

EXAMPLE

Science Museum Group Search Objects Example

3 fields

EXAMPLE

Security Posture 1

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Science Museum Group Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DMARC

SECURITY

Agentic Access 1

Recommended x-agentic-access execution contracts for AI agents.

Science Museum Group Agentic Access

7 operations

7 operations · 0 acting

AGENTIC

Resources

Get Started 1

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

Collections Portal

Collections Portal

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHubOrganization

GitHubOrganization

Access & Security 1

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Operate 2

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

RateLimits

RateLimits

IssueTracker

IssueTracker

Commercial 3

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

Plans

Plans

FinOps

FinOps

License

License

Company 3

The organization behind the API

BlogRSS

BlogRSS

LinkedIn

Website

Website

Source (apis.yml)

aid: science-museum-group
deliveryModel:
  model: self-hosted
  license: MIT
  open_source: true
  commercial: false
  callable_host: true
  label: Self-hosted open source · you run it yourself
  confidence: high
  source:
  - license
  - openapi
  generated: '2026-08-28'
  method: derived
accessModel:
  pricing: freemium
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Freemium
  confidence: low
  source:
  - plans
  - security
  generated: '2026-11-06'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/science-museum-group.png
name: Science Museum Group
description: 'The Science Museum Group operates five UK science and technology museums: the Science Museum (London), the Science
  and Industry Museum (Manchester), the National Railway Museum (York), the National Science and Media Museum (Bradford),
  and Locomotion (Shildon). The group provides an open Collection API giving developers programmatic access to over 7 million
  objects, people, and documents in the museum collections via a JSONAPI-compliant REST interface. The API is free to use
  and supports searching, filtering, and retrieval of collection items with rich metadata, images, and curatorial notes.'
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/science-museum-group/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2026-05-02'
modified: '2026-10-06'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
tags:
- Museums
- Collection
- Cultural Heritage
- Open Data
- Science
- Technology
- United Kingdom
tags_raw:
- Museums
- Collections
- Cultural Heritage
- Open Data
- Science
- Technology
- United Kingdom
apis:
- aid: science-museum-group:science-museum-group-documents-api
  name: Science Museum Group Documents API
  description: Documents, archives, and written records in the collection
  humanURL: https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/our-work/our-collection/using-our-collection-api
  baseURL: https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk
  tags:
  - Documents
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/science-museum-group-documents-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/our-work/our-collection/using-our-collection-api
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/TheScienceMuseum/collectionsonline-api
  - type: SpectralRules
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/science-museum-group/refs/heads/main/rules/science-museum-group-rules.yml
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/science-museum-group/refs/heads/main/json-schema/science-museum-group-collection-object-schema.json
  - type: JSONLDContext
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/science-museum-group/refs/heads/main/json-ld/science-museum-group-context.jsonld
  - type: Vocabulary
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/science-museum-group/refs/heads/main/vocabulary/science-museum-group-vocabulary.yml
- aid: science-museum-group:science-museum-group-objects-api
  name: Science Museum Group Objects API
  description: Scientific instruments, industrial artifacts, and cultural items in the collection
  humanURL: https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/our-work/our-collection/using-our-collection-api
  baseURL: https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk
  tags:
  - Objects
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/science-museum-group-objects-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/our-work/our-collection/using-our-collection-api
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/TheScienceMuseum/collectionsonline-api
  - type: SpectralRules
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/science-museum-group/refs/heads/main/rules/science-museum-group-rules.yml
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/science-museum-group/refs/heads/main/json-schema/science-museum-group-collection-object-schema.json
  - type: JSONLDContext
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/science-museum-group/refs/heads/main/json-ld/science-museum-group-context.jsonld
  - type: Vocabulary
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/science-museum-group/refs/heads/main/vocabulary/science-museum-group-vocabulary.yml
- aid: science-museum-group:science-museum-group-people-api
  name: Science Museum Group People API
  description: People associated with the museum collections including makers, scientists, and historical figures
  humanURL: https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/our-work/our-collection/using-our-collection-api
  baseURL: https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk
  tags:
  - People
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/science-museum-group-people-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/our-work/our-collection/using-our-collection-api
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/TheScienceMuseum/collectionsonline-api
  - type: SpectralRules
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/science-museum-group/refs/heads/main/rules/science-museum-group-rules.yml
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/science-museum-group/refs/heads/main/json-schema/science-museum-group-collection-object-schema.json
  - type: JSONLDContext
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/science-museum-group/refs/heads/main/json-ld/science-museum-group-context.jsonld
  - type: Vocabulary
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/science-museum-group/refs/heads/main/vocabulary/science-museum-group-vocabulary.yml
- aid: science-museum-group:science-museum-group-search-api
  name: Science Museum Group Search API
  description: Full-text and filtered search across all collection types
  humanURL: https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/our-work/our-collection/using-our-collection-api
  baseURL: https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk
  tags:
  - Search
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/science-museum-group-search-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/our-work/our-collection/using-our-collection-api
  - type: GitHubRepository
    url: https://github.com/TheScienceMuseum/collectionsonline-api
  - type: SpectralRules
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/science-museum-group/refs/heads/main/rules/science-museum-group-rules.yml
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/science-museum-group/refs/heads/main/json-schema/science-museum-group-collection-object-schema.json
  - type: JSONLDContext
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/science-museum-group/refs/heads/main/json-ld/science-museum-group-context.jsonld
  - type: Vocabulary
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/science-museum-group/refs/heads/main/vocabulary/science-museum-group-vocabulary.yml
common:
- type: Plans
  url: plans/science-museum-group-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/science-museum-group-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/science-museum-group-finops.yml
- url: https://blog.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/feed/
  type: BlogRSS
- type: IssueTracker
  url: https://github.com/TheScienceMuseum/collectionsonline-api/issues
- type: License
  name: MIT
  url: https://github.com/TheScienceMuseum/collectionsonline-api/blob/master/LICENSE
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/science-museum-group-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/science-museum-group-domain-security.yml
- type: LinkedIn
  url: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sciencemuseumgroup
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/TheScienceMuseum
- type: Website
  url: https://www.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/
- type: Collections Portal
  url: https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

Science Museum Group API — frequently asked questions

Does Science Museum Group have an API?

Yes. APIs.io lists 4 APIs from Science Museum Group, including Science Museum Group Documents API, Science Museum Group Objects API and Science Museum Group People API, and 1 more.

Is there an OpenAPI specification for the Science Museum Group API?

Yes. APIs.io indexes 4 OpenAPI specifications for Science Museum Group, each linked for download from this page.

How much does the Science Museum Group API cost?

APIs.io lists 3 pricing plans for Science Museum Group, with each plan's price, limits and inclusions under Pricing on this page.

Is the Science Museum Group API ready for AI agents?

Science Museum Group has a Kin Score of 26.5 out of 100 (thin) and an Agent Readiness score of 25.7 (agent-aware), scored by API Evangelist on 2026-11-06.

Work with this as data

Every provider here is available over the APIs.io API and to AI agents over MCP.

MCP server

One button, every client — Claude, Cursor, VS Code and the rest.

https://apis.io/mcp

Tools for providers

9 MCP tools reach this

find_providersBrowse and filter every provider in the catalog.
get_provider_artifactsEvery artifact this provider publishes, grouped by type.
get_provider_operationsEvery operation across all of their OpenAPIs — one call instead of parsing every spec.
get_provider_toolsEvery MCP tool they ship, with the operation each wraps.
get_provider_evidenceHow each part of their score was established. Free — the basis for a claim should not sit behind it.
get_provider_ratingPRO — composite, band, trend and facet scores.
apis_io_searchSTART HERE — APIs, providers and tags for one query, each with its total.
resolveTurn a domain, URL or GitHub org into the provider it belongs to.
find_cohortsEvery scored population of providers in the catalog.

All 92 tools →

Call it yourself

curl for this page

This provider

curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/providers/science-museum-group"

All providers

curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/providers?limit=25"

Every operation they expose

curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/providers/science-museum-group/operations?limit=25"

How their score was established

curl "https://apis.io/api/v1/providers/science-museum-group/evidence"

Calls without X-API-Key need no key. Calls with it need a paid plan — get a key.

Get an API key

Free tier, no form to fill in. Signing in shares your email address with us — we store it to create your key and to recognise you if you sign in with another provider. See our Privacy Policy and Terms.

GitHub Google LinkedIn

A second provider on the same verified email joins the account you already have.