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This short comment presents a few suggestions for the enrichment of JCOM seen from the perspective of an informal learning expert. My field of practice and research is informal learning, whether this means informal learning methodologies, visitors’ engagement and experience in museums and science centres, or explainers’ and educators’ professional development. At the same time, as Head of Education I am also interested in the management of a museum (education) department and staff, that is, in strategy, policy and development issues. In this position, but also simply as a professional of the museum field, this means a continuous need to reflect on research arguments and on case studies from practice, but also the need to be inspired and to think of the future — including the one we are not able to see clearly yet. Our world changes fast and this time change means revolution rather than evolution; we perceive it everyday in learning to live with the international economic crisis, in the new technologies, in education, in civic responsibility and participation. We need to be well equipped — in terms of knowledge, competence and strategy — to understand what this means for our institutions, our visitors and ourselves as practitioners. There are important questions to answer, fast:  What is today — and what could be tomorrow — our visitors’ (learning) agenda in science centres and museums?  How can museums ensure that they remain the institutions where people go to find answers to their questions (and to raise more), through life-changing experiences?  Do our professional skills (and consequently our entry training) need to change to assimilate the stimuli from the surrounding world in a creative way?  How do we balance our mission of fostering creativity and open-endedness in learning with the demand for accountability often tightly linked to funding for survival? If I am to translate these questions in what I would need from JCOM as a science communication journal, I would say that I would like to find:

Reflecting on the role of informal learning and visitor experience in science museums