Jodrell Bank was the warning shot - ARIA could be next

Author: Finlay Thacker-McPherson

Recently announced cuts to the Jodrell Bank Observatory, which houses the Lovell Telescope, look set to bring the curtain down on one of the UK's foremost assets in astronomy.

The Lovell Telescope tracked the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 and was more recently included in the International Square Kilometre Array project, one of the biggest astronomy projects in the world.

Yet it has been earmarked for funding cuts by Burnham’s government. This is a move indicative of a government that is willing to sacrifice science and technology while the cost of an ever-growing welfare state continues to rise.

Jodrell Bank is a warning of what can happen when the long-term strategic value of science is judged against the short-term demands of a spending review.

With the Treasury looking for savings while the cost of the welfare state continues to rise, there is a danger that other areas of science and technology spending will come under pressure. Institutions whose value is uncertain, long-term and difficult to capture on a spreadsheet are particularly vulnerable.

ARIA – the Advanced Research and Invention Agency – is exactly the sort of institution that could become a target.

Formally established in 2023 after being announced under Boris Johnson’s premiership, ARIA was inspired by the American DARPA model. It exists to make bets that conventional government funding mechanisms struggle to make: backing ambitious projects with a high risk of failure but potentially transformative rewards.

That means failure is not evidence that ARIA is failing. It is an essential feature of the model.

ARIA was deliberately designed to operate with greater freedom from conventional Whitehall bureaucracy, giving its Programme Directors the ability to make fast, bold decisions without the layers of caution and process that too often characterise government funding.

It serves as an incubator for moonshot projects and innovative research.

Its foundational modus operandi of backing projects that may fail but would bring significant value if successful allows it to support cutting-edge innovation at the forefront of AI, neurotechnology and life sciences, which already bring great benefit to the UK.

Cutting funding to ARIA so soon in its lifespan would dismantle one of the genuinely innovative parts of Britain’s research funding system before it has had time to prove itself.

As BIST takes over from DSIT with an objective to cut projects it sees as unnecessary, viewed through the wrong lens, speculative programmes that may not deliver a commercial return for years can look like obvious candidates for cuts. But forcing ARIA to demonstrate the predictable, short-term returns expected of conventional government programmes would destroy the reason it exists.

There is also a bigger strategic opportunity.

Britain now has two organisations inspired by the DARPA philosophy: ARIA and UK Defence Innovation (UKDI). Used properly, they could form part of a project for building sovereign British technological capabilities.

A clear pipeline between ARIA and UKDI could be established in which ARIA takes early bets on civilian moonshot projects, and UKDI then stands ready to develop those that are successful and have national security applications into sovereign UK defence capabilities.

This pipeline could give Britain something it has too often lacked: a route from an early technological breakthrough to a sovereign capability that can be developed and scaled here in the UK.

For decades, potentially transformative technologies have struggled against risk-averse funding processes, slow procurement and Whitehall’s preference for established solutions. ARIA and UKDI provide an opportunity to do things differently – backing British scientists, entrepreneurs and companies before their technologies are proven, and then ensuring successful ideas have a route to scale at home.

This matters far beyond defence. In artificial intelligence, computing, biotechnology and other critical technologies, Britain cannot assume that every capability it needs will always be available from overseas. Allies are essential, but dependency is a choice.

The lesson from Jodrell Bank should therefore be bigger than the future of one telescope. Scientific institutions whose benefits emerge over decades are easy to undervalue when governments are searching for immediate savings. Once the capability, expertise and institutions disappear, however, rebuilding them is far harder.

ARIA was established by a Conservative government because the existing system was not good enough at taking risks. Conservatives in opposition should defend that principle.

The Party should make clear its commitment to ARIA and UKDI, call for the protection of their funding, and push for a formal pipeline between the two so that promising British technologies can move from speculative research towards sovereign national capabilities. It should also call on the Government to reverse the cuts threatening Jodrell Bank.

Ultimately, the test for ARIA cannot simply be: “What has it delivered so far?”

The whole point is what it might deliver next.

If every ARIA project must demonstrate a predictable return in order to survive the next spending review, ministers will have abolished the ARIA model without ever having to abolish ARIA itself.