Empowering scientists to reach for the edge of the possible
Scroll to get to know ARIAARIA is a UK R&D funding agency built to unlock scientific and technological breakthroughs that benefit everyone.
Society’s most important advances have stemmed from those willing to think differently about what might be possible.
The Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) empowers scientists and engineers, from our Programme Directors to the teams we fund, with the resources and freedom to pursue breakthroughs at the edge of the possible.
Many will fail to meet their target, but their efforts will inspire the next generation. Those that do succeed will generate massive social and economic returns.
The latest from ARIA
Become an ARIA Programme Director
Learn more about the role and apply to be a Programme Director
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Hypersensory Intelligence – Olfactory Perception
Explore our latest call and apply for funding
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Ubiquitous Particle Profiling
Explore our latest programme thesis and share your thoughts
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Become an ARIA Programme Director
Applications for our third cohort are now open – apply by 28 September for a May 2027 start.
Opportunity spaces
ARIA's opportunity spaces are the frontiers where we believe transformational breakthroughs are possible. They're our strategic visions of the future: areas of unmet opportunity where we believe new capabilities will most benefit humanity and where ambitious research could fundamentally change what becomes possible.
Each opportunity space is highly interdisciplinary – spanning multiple disciplines and potential applications in new ways. Together, they form our framework for discovering and exploring new ideas – from guiding the development of our programmes all the way through to funding researchers to unlock these visions and build the future.
Discover our opportunity spaces below:
Nature-Inspired Computation
Programme: Scaling Compute
Programme: Olfactory Perception
Unsustainable energy requirements and limited datasets demand alternative scaling pathways for AI. Novel computing, learning and perception paradigms inspired by nature will enable radically greater efficiency and adaptability.
Open calls
Programme Funding
Hypersensory Intelligence – Olfactory Perception: TA1 Full proposals
This £65m programme seeks to build the foundations for general-purpose olfactory perception – matching or exceeding biological systems in programme challenges. We’re accepting proposals for Technical Area 1, in which up to six teams will be given up to £500k each to build the Open Olfactory Resource (OOR), the world's largest open, cross-domain dataset of volatile chemical signals.
Opportunity space
Nature-Inspired Computation
Programme Director
Claire Donoghue
Deadline
30 September 2026
Programme Funding
Safeguarded AI: Cybersecurity – Rolling applications
This £20m funding call seeks to test and accelerate the hypothesis that AI-enabled formal methods can make high-assurance cyber defence practical at scale. We're accepting proposals on a rolling basis, reviewed in quarterly batches, for Blue Teams (3–6 teams, approx. £2.5–3.5m each) to build production-grade, security-critical software components whose key security properties are backed by machine-checked proofs – validated through coordinated red-team exercises.
Opportunity space
Trust Everything, Everywhere
Programme Director
Nora Ammann
Deadline for current batch
31 October 2026
Programme Funding
Scaling Trust: Tracks 2+3 – Rolling applications
This £49.8m programme seeks to build tools for agents to securely interact with one another in untrusted environments while respecting the preferences of their users. We're accepting proposals on a rolling basis, reviewed in quarterly batches, across two tracks: Track 2 – Tooling (4–6 teams, £200k–£2m each) to build open-source agents and reusable components for secure requirement capture, negotiation, protocol generation, and verification; and Track 3 – Fundamental Research (three Research Centres plus 4–12 smaller teams, £100k–£3m each) to turn empirical security into provable guarantees and unlock new cyber-physical trust primitives for agents.
Opportunity space
Trust Everything, Everywhere
Programme Director
Alex Obadia
Deadline for current batch
31 October 2026
Featured insights
Predicting Evolution
Programme Director Yannick Wurm explores a potential new programme
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Supporting future climate innovators
How Launch 4 Change is widening access to science and engineering across the UK
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The missing sense in machine intelligence
Olfactory Perception and the breakthroughs it could unlock
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