Funding
We fund teams to pursue research at the edge of the possible. Discover how we fund and how to apply, and learn what happens post-award.
Funding types
Our opportunity spaces are areas of research that we believe are underexplored and ripe for breakthroughs. Within these, we fund projects either as part of a programme or as opportunity seeds.
Programme Funding
Programmes (£10-100m total)
Our programmes pursue some of the most ambitious scientific objectives in the UK. Each programme is made up of a portfolio of projects.
Opportunity Seed
Opportunity seeds (up £500k per project)
Opportunity seeds give individual research teams the freedom to explore new research pathways that might otherwise fall through the cracks.
Funding opportunities
Select to explore more:
These calls are currently open – please read the relevant supporting documentation before applying.
Programme Funding
Robot Dexterity: Standards and benchmarks for dexterous robotics – Request for Proposal
Alongside its work on hardware components, the Robot Dexterity programme is backing efforts to turn those advances into complete, field-ready systems. Progress across the field will be easier if developers can combine technologies from different sources, assess what they can do, and build on one another’s work. We will be seeking proposals to develop benchmarks, standards, interfaces, or other shared capabilities that make it easier to develop and deploy dexterous robots. Standards for tactile sense data are a particular priority, alongside wider work on benchmarking, performance evaluation, hardware and software interoperability, and shared testing infrastructure. Outputs should be useful to the wider robotics community, with benefits extending well beyond the UK.
Opportunity space
Adaptive Machines
Programme Director
Jenny Read
Deadline
01 December 2026
Programme Funding
Precision Mitochondria: ST&R – Request For Proposal
The Precision Mitochondria programme aims to create a foundational toolkit for engineering the mitochondrial genome in vivo. Achieving this will require advances in delivery, expression, maintenance and transfer to work together – and for teams to be able to assess, reproduce and adapt one another’s methods. We will be seeking proposals from teams able to be the dedicated partner(s) to provide the shared scientific, technical and practical resource needed to turn promising individual advances into dependable capabilities that can be used across the programme. This includes, but is not limited to, supporting the transfer of methods and materials between laboratories, establishing shared benchmarks and reporting standards, and independently evaluating and reproducing results.
Opportunity Space
Programmable Physiology
Programme Director
Ryan Olf
Deadline
09 November 2026
Programme Funding
Safeguarded AI: Cybersecurity – Rolling applications
This £20m funding call seeks to test and accelerate the hypothesis that AI-enabled formal methods can make high-assurance cyber defence practical at scale. We're accepting proposals on a rolling basis, reviewed in quarterly batches, for Blue Teams (3–6 teams, approx. £2.5–3.5m each) to build production-grade, security-critical software components whose key security properties are backed by machine-checked proofs – validated through coordinated red-team exercises.
Opportunity space
Trust Everything, Everywhere
Programme Director
Nora Ammann
Deadline for current batch
31 October 2026
Programme Funding
Scaling Trust: Tracks 2+3 – Rolling applications
This £49.8m programme seeks to build tools for agents to securely interact with one another in untrusted environments while respecting the preferences of their users. We're accepting proposals on a rolling basis, reviewed in quarterly batches, across two tracks: Track 2 – Tooling (4–6 teams, £200k–£2m each) to build open-source agents and reusable components for secure requirement capture, negotiation, protocol generation, and verification; and Track 3 – Fundamental Research (three Research Centres plus 4–12 smaller teams, £100k–£3m each) to turn empirical security into provable guarantees and unlock new cyber-physical trust primitives for agents.
Opportunity space
Trust Everything, Everywhere
Programme Director
Alex Obadia
Deadline for current batch
31 October 2026
Applicant guidance
We welcome applications for funding from across the ecosystem – discover the process of applying for ARIA funding and find key resources.
Being funded by ARIA
R&D Creators are individuals and teams who receive ARIA programme or opportunity seed research funding – learn more about the post-award experience.
Sign up for updates
Keep up-to-date on our latest opportunity spaces, programmes and funding calls.