Advanced Research & Invention Agency (Aria) will have a “higher tolerance for failure than is normal”, the government said
The UK is to launch a “high-risk” science agency to look for ground-breaking discoveries.
The agency, Aria, will be run similar to its US equivalents that played a vital role in the creation of the internet and GPS.
Advanced Research & Invention Agency (Aria), which has £800m funding over four years, will have a “higher tolerance for failure than is normal”, the government said.
Labour asked the government to clarify the agency’s role.
According to the government, the new body would fund “high-risk, high-reward” scientific research.
But the amount of funding it will get is a fraction of the money received by existing government research bodies such as UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
The government has allocated £10.36bn for its research programmes and bodies for 2020-21 alone.
Nevertheless, the government said that Aria would “help to cement the UK’s position as a global science superpower”.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said the new agency would “drive forward the technologies of tomorrow” by “stripping back unnecessary red tape”.
From the steam engine to the latest artificial intelligence technologies, the UK is steeped in scientific discovery. Today’s set of challenges – whether disease outbreaks or climate change – need bold, ambitious and innovative solutions, he said.
Led independently by our most exceptional scientists, this new agency will focus on identifying and funding the most cutting-edge research and technology at speed, Mr Kwarteng said.
Boris Johnson’s former senior adviser Dominic Cummings was a prominent supporter of “blue-sky” thinking by small groups of scientists, supporting “high-risk high-payoff visions”.
Aria will be modelled along the lines of the US Advanced Research Projects Agency (Arpa), which supported research that led to the internet and GPS, and its successor Darpa, which funded the precursors to coronavirus vaccines.
Science and innovation minister Amanda Solloway said: To rise to the challenges of the 21st Century, we need to equip our R&D community with a new scientific engine – one that embraces the idea that truly great successes come from taking great leaps into the unknown.
Recruitment for a chief executive and chair for the agency will begin in the coming weeks.
Matthew Fell, CBI UK chief policy director, said the UK had “a unique opportunity to play to its strength” with the new agency, to help create jobs, raise productivity and tackle the biggest challenges facing the country.
Key to Aria’s success will be strong business engagement to make sure the brilliant ideas developed can make it through to market, he added.
Sir Jim McDonald, president of the Royal Academy of Engineering, said: Engineering is central to an ambitious innovation agency of this kind, forming the bridge between research and innovation to enable technological and commercial breakthroughs.
But Labour shadow business secretary Ed Miliband said there should be clear mandate for the agency and subjected to Freedom of Information laws, in order to ensure transparency of funding.
Labour has long called for investment in high ambition, high risk science, he said. But government must urgently clarify the mission and mandate of this new organisation, following strong engagement with the UK’s science base – those closest to the work.