New briefing note offers international lessons for ARIA

CIIP have produced a briefing note to inform the development of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) in the UK and other emerging ARPA-like challenge-led R&I agencies globally. The note is the result of a roundtable meeting chaired by Eoin O’Sullivan on 24 February that explored the experiences and challenges of setting up ARPA-like initiatives within different national contexts.

The event brought together programme managers from challenge-driven research project (ARPA-like) agencies, along with academics who have studied the ARPA model, and interested UK policymakers and agency officials to explore key questions such as:

• What technology innovation challenges are ‘ARPA-able’?
• How are challenges (and stretch goals) identified and prioritised?
• What programme manager qualities, expertise and experiences are essential?
• How are technology-to-market transitions managed?
• How can the insights and initiatives of other R&I agencies be leveraged?

Participants included representatives from the Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP) in Japan, MIT, the US Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E), UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and advisers from 10 Downing Street.

Reading briefing notes