UK to launch £800m research agency
The UK government is planning to launch a new independent research body to fund high-risk, high-reward scientific research with backing of £800m (€922m).
The Advanced Research & Invention Agency (ARIA) is starting to recruit leading scientists to lead it and identify and fund transformational science and technology at speed.
The new agency will have to work alongside the £6bn UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) agency that deliberately brought together all seven research organisations funded by the science budget of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. It has also recently launched a small light touch fund for ‘high risk’ research. There are also nine Catapults that focus on more commercial research and development in areas such as Satellite Applications, Compound Semiconductors, Digital systems (including AI), High Value Manufacturing and Connected places, aka Smart Cities.
ARIA is deliberately modelled on the US ARPA and DARPA agencies that took a long term view of research, but with a short term drive to commercialisation to develop technologies at speed.
“The ARPA model’s focus on the future would also be a welcome addition to the UK’s R&D funding system, scanning the horizon for areas of research and technology development that may not have an obvious immediate market application but that are likely to benefit the industries of tomorrow, in 10, even 20 years’ time,” said the UK’s Institute of Physics.
“By stripping back unnecessary red tape and putting power in the hands of our innovators, the agency will be given the freedom to drive forward the technologies of tomorrow, as we continue to build back better through innovation,” said Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng.
“Central to the agency will be its ability to deliver funding to the UK’s most pioneering researchers flexibly and at speed, in a way that best supports their work and avoids unnecessary bureaucracy,” he said. “It will experiment with funding models including program grants, seed grants, and prize incentives, and will have the capability to start and stop projects according to their success, redirecting funding where necessary. It will have a much higher tolerance for failure than is normal, recognising that in research the freedom to fail is often also the freedom to succeed.”
This appears to be a direct criticism of UKRI, which says it supports the new agency.
“The creation of a new science and invention agency (ARIA) has tremendous potential to enhance the UK and global research and innovation system,” said Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser, Chief Executive of UKRI. “The agency will have the freedom to experiment with pioneering new funding models, extending the reach of the current system to support people and ideas in new and different ways. Working closely together, UK Research and Innovation and ARIA will catalyse an even more diverse, dynamic and creative funding system that will ensure transformative ideas, whoever has them, can change people’s lives for the better.”
Legislation to set up ARIA will come to the UK Parliament in the next month, aiming to complement the work of UKRI while building on the government’s R&D Roadmap published in July 2020, which again appears to criticise the direction of UKRI. This includes a focus on AI, quantum technology and Industry4.0 that are already part of the remit of the Catapults.
“Key to ARIA’s success will be strong business engagement to make sure the brilliant ideas developed can make it through to market,” said Matthew Fell, UK Chief Policy Director of buisess group the CBI. “This a prime chance for business, government and the research and innovation community to work together and turn ambitions into realities. And coalesce around an shared economic vision for the next decade in which innovation will be at the heart of it.”
More clarity is expected with the publication of the legislation and the recruitment of the leadership.
Related articles
- UK GOVERNMENT HELPS NEWPORT FOUNDRY DEVELOP GaN PROCESS
- SUNDANCE JOINS UK AI INCUBATOR
- QUANTUM PHOTONIC BOOST WITH UK FOUNDRY LAUNCH
- UK BOOSTS SPACE-AS-A-SERVICE WITH 10 SATELLITE CONTRACT
Other articles on eeNews Europe
- Bosch in blockchain trial for secure AIoT
- US and EU on collision course over semiconductor industry
- ST builds digital twin of Crolles fab
- Project to build photonic quantum computer
- Bosch CEO calls for quantum commitment
If you enjoyed this article, you will like the following ones: don't miss them by subscribing to :
