Advanced Research & Invention Agency (ARIA) funding
Overview
Together with their founding cohort of Activation Partners they work to further embed science entrepreneurship across their work, help spark latent ideas, empower talent, support new ventures and provide insights and connectivity across the opportunity spaces they’re exploring. As well as providing entrepreneurial training and access to high-quality market knowledge, they fund breakthrough R&D towards societal impact.
Funding Approach
Their research model
Their Programme Directors retain creative control over how and who they fund within the opportunity spaces they've defined. Their research model is built around two primary modes:
Programmes (£50–80M):
Their programmes are designed to advance complex, large-scale ideas which require coordinated investment and management across disciplines and institutions. To build a programme, each Programme Director directs the review, selection, and funding of a portfolio of projects which work in tandem to drive breakthroughs.
Opportunity seeds (up to £500k):
With smaller budgets and less structure than programmes, seeds support individual research teams to uncover new pathways that could inspire future programmes or might justify additional support as a standalone project.
Eligibility
They welcome solicited applications from across the R&D ecosystem, including individuals, universities, research institutions, small, medium and large companies, charities and public sector research organisations.
They are keen to explore structures not typical in academic research, such as supporting early career researchers as project leads or funding large (>80%) proportions of senior academics’ time so that they can focus fully on their ARIA project.
Who is eligible to apply for ARIA funding?
- Scientific and technological breakthroughs often rely on a mix of academic and industrial capabilities that can be hard to find in a single organisation, so their programmes will deliberately reach across disciplines, sectors and institutions.
They are keen to explore structures not typical in academic research, such as supporting early career researchers as project leads or funding large (>80%) proportions of senior academics’ time so that they can focus fully on their ARIA project.
Applicants may submit multiple proposals to a funding call, provided each represents a distinct project, though they can be complementary. Each submission will be evaluated independently based on the call’s criteria, with no disadvantage to the applicant.
Applying for an opportunity seed does not prevent you from applying to other ARIA funding calls or programmes.
Screening, compliance and due diligence
There are some eligibility restrictions. All proposals pass through an initial screening and compliance review. At this stage they carry out some checks to verify your identity, review any national security risks and check for any conflicts of interest (ARIA staff and/or their family members are ineligible to apply for any ARIA funding. Non-compliant or non-eligible proposals will be rejected at this stage.
If you are successfully selected for award of funding they’ll then conduct some further due diligence, as part of this they may ask for some additional information.
Ideally you should have your organisation’s consent prior to submission of your proposal. This may not be possible, so they don’t require it at concept paper stage. As part of the full proposal application, if you wish to conduct the research at your organisation they will require confirmation of your organisation’s consent. If your application is successful and you wish to conduct the research at your organisation, they will need their consent to formally agree the funding.