Abstract

The Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) is a UK R&D funding agency empowering scientists and engineers to pursue breakthroughs at the edge of the possible. Inspired by the ARPA model, our remit is broad, funding transformative work across life sciences, materials, robotics, climate, and AI.

In this event, we'll share how ARIA shapes the spaces we are exploring, our unique approach to funding R&D, and how we work with the research community across the world. We'll also cover our upcoming funding calls. We are globally minded in our ambition and can fund researchers outside the UK, through collaborations or for exceptional proposals that couldn't be pursued anywhere else.

Bio

Alice Pettitt and Edith-Clare Hall are two of four Frontier Specialists at ARIA. They are "free radicals" at ARIA, working across its opportunity spaces to provide technical bandwidth to the Programme Directors, scope out exciting new emerging areas, and identify synergies. The Frontier Specialists are based in the Office of the CTO and are also working closely with ARIA’s Inaugural CTO, Ant Rowstron, to shape ARIA’s "AI for breakthroughs" agenda.

• Alice holds a PhD in Molecular Biophysics from University College London where she was combining computational and experimental approaches to characterise intrinsically disordered proteins. Her interests span engineering biology to climate adaptation. Before joining ARIA she was a Venture Fellow at the Creator Fund (a pre-seed, deep-tech VC fund) and a Founder’s Associate at a bootstrapped startup building a business-to-business marketplace. 
• Edith’s doctoral research was in designing bespoke, dexterous, symbiotic wearable robotic orthoses for as-needed assistance throughout progressive neuromuscular disease. Her interest is in unlocking autonomy at the interfaces of cyberphysical and natural-synthetic systems. Before joining ARIA she was the lead of women in robotics UK and Robotics Inclusive and a JSPS fellow at Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 2024 she was awarded the ‘rising star’ prize by the Robotics and Automation Magazine as well as a Royal Academy of Engineering Ingenious Grant to develop interdisciplinary industry linked robotics outreach.