Meet our Activation Partners: driving progress through science entrepreneurship
At ARIA, we know that scientific discovery alone won’t change the world. To achieve our mission of unlocking breakthroughs that benefit everyone, we must create the right conditions to translate highly speculative science into world-changing capabilities.
Since day one, we’ve designed and deployed a variety of initiatives to support this goal – from developing funding terms that incentivise scientist founders to funding research led by ambitious startups and corporates, alongside universities and public labs.
As our Chief Product Officer Pippy James explained earlier this year, "we're actively thinking about how we can best harness entrepreneurial drive to turn breakthroughs from our programmes into tangible impact for the UK, and are exploring mechanisms for what that looks like in practice."
Today we’re excited to share our latest effort in this endeavour. Through a new element to our model, we’re piloting a series of new R&D partnerships that will deliver a diverse range of bespoke activities across ARIA’s current* and emerging opportunity spaces, extending our reach throughout the UK and bringing together different parts of the ecosystem that otherwise might not have an opportunity to connect. Our partners will work alongside us to foster an environment that maximises the impact of ARIA-funded research, creating the conditions for science entrepreneurship to drive progress, even at the edge of the possible.
Meet our Activation Partners
Enter our Activation Partners. Made up of nine deeply technical and highly entrepreneurial organisations, our partners are pioneers of new science innovation models, community builders, world-leading research labs, and deep-tech focused accelerators — all united in their commitment to propel early-stage R&D into game-changing innovations that will shape the world.
Over the next three years, these organisations will launch and deliver a range of initiatives across the UK – building dedicated scientist training programmes, developing new prototype inventions emerging from ARIA’s opportunity spaces, and creating new research organisations directed towards the applications of focused R&D. Our hypothesis is that by injecting more entrepreneurial talent, capital and ideas into our opportunity spaces, we can drive our research – and the UK – towards massive social and economic impact.
Accelerating the impact of ARIA-funded activities
“This collaboration represents a unique opportunity to remove bottlenecks to breakthrough scientific research. We hope to provide a new mechanism for executing against ARIA programmes and opportunity spaces, advance the UK’s scientific and technological capabilities, attract talent, and give scientists a new avenue to pursue cutting-edge, large-scale research projects in the UK.”
– Convergent Research
From nearly 200 global proposals, sourced through a highly competitive process, we have carefully curated a portfolio of partners based on their track records, ambition, differentiated value propositions, and relevance to ARIA's mission and opportunity spaces.
Our final selection includes a diverse set of organisations that complement each other and span the entire science innovation stack. Some of them are already established players in the UK, while others will be setting up operations and building teams here for the first time. This presents an exciting opportunity to create new talent pipelines, foster novel IP, and facilitate more investment within the UK R&D landscape, delivering new opportunities to turn research into real-world solutions.
Below are more details on our partners, and the emerging shape of what they’ll do:
Convergent Research is a non-profit organisation pioneering the use of Focused Research Organizations (FROs) to unblock research bottlenecks. Convergent Research will identify and develop Focused Research Organisation (FRO)-shaped opportunities in our opportunity spaces. FROs are a new scientific institutional model designed to make fast progress by using team science and systems engineering to tackle research bottlenecks. Working closely with ARIA Programme Directors and the broader UK research ecosystem, Convergent Research will aim to develop an initial cohort of 1-2 FROs to provide a new mechanism for executing research in our opportunity spaces, advance the UK’s scientific and technological capabilities and give scientists a new avenue to pursue cutting-edge, large-scale research projects in the UK.
Google DeepMind is a world-leading AI research lab founded and headquartered in the UK, working to build the next generation of AI systems safely and responsibly. They will work with us to identify projects designed to accelerate the impact of ARIA-backed research. This will include leveraging their team of multidisciplinary researchers, alongside their broader network, to provide access, insights, and connectivity to researchers, and drive applications within our opportunity spaces. [Google DeepMind’s partnership with ARIA will not include a funded component].
Pillar VC is an early-stage venture capital firm supporting founders to move ideas from concept to real-world application. In partnership with ARIA, Pillar VC will launch a fellowship program placing top AI researchers in leading UK science labs. Fellows will spend up to 12 months embedded in labs focusing on our opportunity spaces, covering topics across neuroscience, robotics, climate science, and more. Each fellow will receive a competitive stipend, access to state-of-the-art computing resources, and the opportunity to work on some of the most pressing scientific challenges of our time. Through the program, Pillar VC will deepen its UK presence, investing in ecosystem development through events, programming, and post-fellowship support. Together, these activities will seek to nurture scientific breakthroughs by integrating AI with fundamental research, transforming innovative projects into tangible real-world impact
Renaissance Philanthropy is a non-profit fuelling a 21st century renaissance by increasing ambition and impact between philanthropists, scientists and innovators. As an Activation Partner, Renaissance Philanthropy will launch a new ‘UK Horizons Programme’ to supercharge the UK’s R&D ecosystem. The new programme will build communities, programmes, and efforts that will act as force multipliers for our opportunity spaces. This will include expanding the diversity of science translation mechanisms in the UK ecosystem, attracting flexible and patient capital available to scientists, and building translation strategies to scale the impact of R&D in our opportunity spaces and enable societal benefits.
Amodo Design is an engineering consultancy developing fast, high-quality, advanced engineering projects. Amodo Design will work with our Programme Directors and Creators to develop new scientific equipment for research and prototype inventions from our opportunity spaces. This aims to enable new discoveries and then to de-bottleneck the process of turning discoveries into real-world impact by speeding up the journey from discovery to product, enhancing early-stage traction.
Fifty Years is a pre-seed and seed-focused VC firm, backing founders using technology to solve the world’s biggest problems. Fifty Years will work across our opportunity spaces, delivering its company creation program 5050 in the UK. 5050 equips scientists and engineers with the necessary skills to start and build world-changing companies that can solve humanity's greatest challenges. 5050 participants will identify civilization-scale problems to tackle, develop essential entrepreneurship skills, grow into great founders, and learn everything they need to commercialise their research. Two 5050 cohorts will run per year to help great scientists and engineers become great founders. The first 5050 UK cohort will kick off in early 2025.
Cambridge University Health Partners is an academic health science centre aiming to improve patient healthcare by bringing together the NHS, industry and academia. Cambridge University Health Partners (CUHP) will bring together leaders from science, health and business organisations, including Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, the University of Cambridge including the Maxwell Centre and the Milner Therapeutics Institute, Cambridge Network, Cambridge Neuroscience, Vellos, and the Babraham Research Campus, to support our Scalable Neural Interfaces opportunity space. CUHP will work with us to launch programmes designed to accelerate innovation in neurotechnology by enabling scientists, clinicians and entrepreneurs to collaborate and translate speculative science into practical applications at scale whilst fostering a vibrant UK-wide neurotech community.
CIC’s Venture Café initiative is a global network that seeks to further local innovation ecosystems. The Venture Cafe’s mission is to “connect innovators to make things happen”. Through our partnership, CIC and Venture Café Global Institute will launch their global network of innovation communities, Venture Café, across the UK. Venture Cafés activate innovation ecosystems by connecting innovators, entrepreneurs, and small businesses on a weekly basis through free, high-impact programming and events. The first UK Venture Café will launch in London in early 2025 building on the city’s vibrant entrepreneurial community with two additional UK locations following soon after. These Venture Cafés will focus on connecting talent within our current and emerging opportunity spaces to the broader UK innovation ecosystem to advance progress and ensure scalable impact.
Nucleate is a non-profit representing one of the largest global communities of bio-innovators. Nucleate supports scientists in translating their work through providing resources for the biotech community, empowering the next generation of biotech founders and educational initiatives. Nucleate UK and ARIA will partner to accelerate the development of new technologies and communities in the eco- and biotech fields, focusing initially on our Programmable Plants opportunity space. By identifying and supporting top UK scientific talent through targeted programs, Nucleate will help transform early-stage ideas into concrete initiatives that translate R&D into societal impact
The road ahead
“ARIA’s ethos of fostering entrepreneurial science resonates with our belief that translational research is a “team sport”. Together, we can build an environment where creativity and bold experimentation thrive.”
– Cambridge University Health Partners
As we move forward with these activities, we'll share feedback and results to highlight our learning and hopefully inspire others across the UK's world-leading R&D ecosystem. For any individuals, organisations, or networks in the UK who share a commitment to turning innovation into impact, follow us to stay tuned on our progress – and for future opportunities to get involved.
Sign up here for real-time updates on our programmes, partnerships, and the future of breakthrough science.
*While some partners will operate in specific opportunity spaces, others will focus on fostering entrepreneurial drive across the entire ARIA ecosystem. Not all opportunity spaces (including Future-Proofing our Climate and Weather) are supported by a dedicated Activation Partner at this time.
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