Advanced Research and Invention Agency

The Advanced Research and Invention Agency, or ARIA, is a research funding agency of the UK government, announced on 19 February 2021 and formally established on 26 January 2023.^[1][2][3]

Advanced Research and Invention Agency

Established	26 January 2023
Type	Non-departmental public body
CEO	Ilan Gur
Chair	Matt Clifford
Parent organisation	Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
Website	www.aria.org.uk

Dominic Cummings conceived the agency in 2022 as a “moonshot” programme akin to the United States' Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Parliament established ARIA in statute and set a ten-year legal mandate. The law directs the agency to fund research that is risky, uncertain and speculative in nature. The government provided £800 million for its first five years and allocated a further £184 million for 2025–26.^[4]

History

The Advanced Research and Invention Agency Act 2022 created the legislative framework for the agency and it was formally established as an independent research body in January 2023.^[5]

With a similar remit to that of its US equivalent, DARPA, the agency will fund "high-risk, high-reward" research.^[6][7] Organisationally, it will be small, independent of UKRI (the main UK government funding body), with autonomy to operate at speed innovate funding, (for instance with X-Prize type inducements around research goals), rapid "seed" funding, with successful seeds entering a much smaller tier of large-grants, and bonuses for accomplishing research goals.^[8] The agency avoids DARPA’s connection to military research.^[9]

As of 2024, the agency's initial budget is confirmed to be £800 million.^[10]

Aria is designed to operate with a large degree of autonomy and is exempt from Freedom of Information requests. In March 2021 Labour Party Member of Parliament Dawn Butler said this would "raise alarm bells" about how taxpayer money is spent, in light of a scandal over how the UK government procured PPE contracts during the Covid-19 pandemic. Kwasi Kwarteng, who was Business Secretary at the time, insisted the "corporate governance arrangements are very robust" and that MPs would be able to scrutinise the agency's accounts.^[11]

On 20 July 2022, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy announced that ARIA's first CEO would be Ilan Gur and its first Chair would be Matt Clifford.^[12] In early 2023, it was announced that Nobel prize-winning organic chemist Chemistry Sir David MacMillan and Dame Kate Bingham entrepreneur who headed the successful Vaccine Taskforce, would join the board, advancing the high-risk/high-reward research agenda.^[13]

Climate engineering research

In April 2025 it was reported that ARIA would fund a £50 million programme of small-scale outdoor geoengineering experiments. The agency stated that the experiments would be rigorously assessed and were intended to generate data on the feasibility and risks of Solar radiation modification (SRM) technologies. These methods seek to reflect a portion of incoming sunlight, for example through the injection of reflective particles into the atmosphere or by increasing the reflectivity of clouds.^[14]

The programme was announced alongside an £11 million initiative, making the United Kingdom one of the largest funders of geoengineering research. ARIA’s work is led by Professor Mark Symes.^[14]

The research has drawn criticism from some scientists, who warned of potential unintended consequences such as disrupted rainfall patterns. ^[14]

See also

• UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)