Aria’s job should be to solve problems, not blow minds

Funding agency’s new team look like brilliant people, but that’s not enough, says John Womersley

Last week, Aria, the government’s new Advanced Research and Invention Agency, announced its initial team of programme managers. These are the people who will set the direction of Aria’s research programmes and decide how to best fund the R&D community to advance their vision.

The announcement gives a first taste of what Aria has planned, and how it will go about spending its budget of £800 million over four years in a way that complements other sources of research funding in the UK.