Two-thirds of ARIA funding stays in the golden triangle

Two-thirds of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency’s £152.3m investment went to organisations in London, the South East or the East of England, the experimental funder’s annual report and accounts show.

Only 1.9 per cent went to Scotland, with no funding flowing to research in Wales or Northern Ireland. The West Midlands and the North East also saw one per cent or less of the total investment share.

And 14.6 per cent of its funding allocations went outside the UK – this follows increased scrutiny on ARIA’s investments in US-based tech and venture capital, in particular via a recent investigation from the Guardian and Open Democracy. Speaking to Nature earlier this month, ARIA chief executive Kathleen Fisher said that it was “unrealistic” to think that the UK had “100% of the talent necessary to accomplish our moonshot goals.” She noted that whenever ARIA funds a non-UK organisation, it conducts analysis to explain why the spending is “suitable and necessary.”

Of the eight new programmes launched in the past year, the annual report observes that only three of eight met ARIA's “geographical metric” for diversity, though no further information is provided.

Elsewhere we see that 38.3 per cent of funding went to universities and 21.4 per cent went to private companies, with the remaining share going to non-profits and public sector organisations. The funder’s authorised spending limit for the year was £183.9m, meaning that just over 80 per cent of its budget was used. The report notes that ARIA “does not seek to maximise expenditure against its authorised spending limit,” and that funding is adjusted throughout the year “in response to technical progress and emerging evidence.” This is described as an important mechanism for securing value for money.

Chair Matt Clifford’s foreword to the annual report describes ARIA as “picking up momentum” as it enters its fourth year of operation. He stresses the need for programme directors to have the freedom to scale quickly, but also to halt projects when needed, calling this the essence of good stewardship of public money. He highlights the funder’s increased focus on AI as an example of the “bold revisions” needed for programmes to keep pace with the frontiers of research.