LONDON – The UK government is planning to establish a new agency to support the development of new technologies.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy announced Friday that the Advanced Research and Invention Agency will fund high-risk, high-reward scientific research in the hope of making “ groundbreaking ” discoveries. It will be fully operational by next year.
It said the agency will receive £ 800 million ($ 1.1 billion) to help “the most inspiring inventors” over the next four years, which is a relatively small amount compared to other government research agencies such as UK Research and Innovation.
The UK government’s R&D budget for 2020-2021 alone is £ 10.36 billion.
ARIA will operate independently of the government and be led by visionary researchers, the government said, adding that it will be looking for an interim CEO and chairman in the coming weeks.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said in a statement: “From the steam engine to the latest artificial intelligence technologies, the UK is steeped in scientific discoveries. Today’s challenges – be it disease outbreaks or climate change – require bold, ambitious and innovative solutions. . “
He added: “By removing unnecessary red tape and putting the power in the hands of our innovators, the agency is given the freedom to advance the technologies of tomorrow, while we can build back better through innovation. “
Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, said in a statement that the importance of scientific innovation has been made clear over the past year, adding that ARIA provides an “exciting new funding mechanism.”
Dominic Cummings, a former senior adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, thought it a good idea to create a British version of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, formerly called ARPA.
According to the Financial Times, Cummings’ WhatsApp handle still reads “Get Brexit Done, then Arpa.” However, the newspaper states that he is not in the race to be the agency’s CEO, citing government officials familiar with the matter.
Calls to ‘clarify the mandate and mission’
The opposition Labor party has said the government should provide more details about ARIA.
Ed Miliband, Secretary of Shadow Business and Energy, said via Twitter that the government needs to clarify “the mandate and mission” of the new agency and address the “broader funding crisis” facing researchers.
“It’s not at all clear what ARIA is really going to do, especially given its modest budget,” said Jon Crowcroft, a professor of computer science at Cambridge University.
The launch of ARIA follows on the heels of the new $ 12 billion fund from the European Innovation Council. The EIC was founded by the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, to try to help start-ups across Europe scale up and compete with rivals in the US and Asia, which have led to several technology giants with market capitalizations far and wide. in hundreds of billions of dollars.