The mission of The Union Chain Bridge: Crossing Borders, Inspiring Communities Project was to conserve and raise awareness of the historically significant Union Chain Bridge, to celebrate the extraordinary engineering, landscape and context with communities on both sides of the border, and to provide local schools with impactful and sustainable STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths) learning opportunities linked to the conservation works.

Running from 2020 to 2023, this was a uniquely collaborative project that comprised a partnership between Northumberland County Council, Scottish Borders Council, Museums Northumberland and the Friends of the Union Chain Bridge. The project was kindly funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Museums Northumberland was the lead organisation in delivering the public engagement and learning programmes. These programmes achieved demonstrable engagement. Over 3 years, 75 volunteers supported various activities from community archaeology digs to collecting Oral Histories. 18 local First, Middle and Primary schools and 3 Secondary schools engaged with the programme in the local area. More than 800 members of the public took part in STEM activities in the community and over 3000 school children took part in STEM workshops in class.