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Science museums, which produce representations of both science and the public, are being asked to become involved in nanotechnologies under public policies at the global scale that aim to develop this field. This article focuses the situation for science museums in Europe, beginning with a discussion on a European project that involved museums working on nanotechnologies. This example illustrates a “democratic imperative” that European museums are required to address, and which implies a major change in their public role. It puts forward a different approach to analyses of current shifts in perspectives on scientific communication in Europe—which is moving from “scientific understanding among the public” to “scientific understanding of the public”—and of the political construction these changes imply.