ARIA’s “Trust everything, everywhere” opportunity space is based on the idea that trust ‘building blocks’, like encryption, enable digital industries to flourish securely, but they don’t extend into the physical world. With emerging technology blurring the line between digital and physical, a new trust infrastructure that straddles both worlds could unlock cyber-physical markets.
ARIA are interested in applications from fields including, but not limited to: Cryptography, Information Science, Molecular Chemistry and Synthesis, Advanced Materials Science, Synthetic Biology, Systems Engineering, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Human-AI Interaction, Cognitive Security, Hardware and Silicon Security, Astrophysics, and Social Sciences.
Ideas could range from early stage curiosity-driven research through to translational and close-to-commercial science and technology.
Specific areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Nature cryptography: New approaches to security based on physical, chemical or biological processes, including molecular systems that record biological change, built-in physical time delays, tamper-evident quantum materials, or guarantees grounded in thermodynamic costs.
- Programmable reality: Tools and materials that allow physical systems to sense, compute, adapt or enforce boundaries without conventional digital hardware, including soft matter, synthetic biology and mathematical methods for containing dynamic biological networks.
- Trust tools: Interfaces, software and AI systems that make it easier for non-experts to design, programme and verify physical, molecular or biological security systems, including low-code tools for cryptographic hardware and programmable matter.
ARIA are seeking high-potential proposals to build towards this secure future, with funding available up to £500,000 each, and initially expect to fund around 10 opportunity seeds in this space.
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ARIA welcome proposals from across the R&D ecosystem, including individuals (including those not affiliated with an organisation), universities (including proposals from students, postdocs and staff), research institutions, small, medium and large companies, charities and public sector research organisations.
Ideas could come from anywhere, so we welcome proposals from individuals and teams who are early in their career or who have atypical backgrounds. We care more about your idea and your intrinsic motivation than we do about your CV.
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ARIA provide funding between £10,000 to £500,000 per project, inclusive of VAT (where applicable) and all associated costs (both direct and indirect). There is no minimum length for a proposed project; the maximum length is three years.
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In scope
- Ideas that sit within the ‘Trust Everything Everywhere’’ opportunity space. By this, we mean your proposal should show how your idea either aligns with or challenges the assumptions of the Summary, Beliefs, or Observations in the opportunity space document.
- Ideas that range from early stage curiosity-driven research through to translational and close-to-commercial science and technology.
- Applications from fields including, but not limited to: Cryptography, Information Science, Molecular Chemistry and Synthesis, Advanced Materials Science, Synthetic Biology, Systems Engineering, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Human-AI Interaction, Cognitive Security, Hardware and Silicon Security, Astrophysics, and Social Sciences
In scope examples
(Note: This list is not exhaustive. Please do not feel limited by these examples—we want to know what you are genuinely interested in working on):
- Nature Cryptography
- Can we create self-assembling molecular structures that permanently record biological changes deep inside living tissue without relying on any digital computers?
- How might we use predictable chemical reaction times, such as molecule folding, to build unalterable time delays into physical security systems?
- How can large-scale disruptions to quantum states within boundary coatings provide instant, unforgeable physical evidence of a break-in?
- Can we design security protocols where data safety is guaranteed entirely by the physical heat and energy costs required to wipe information?
- Programmable Reality
- How can mathematical tools provide absolute proof and strict containment boundaries for constantly changing biological networks?
- Can shape-shifting soft materials mechanically calculate and log changes in their environment to create a chip-free security foundation for autonomous systems?
- Trust tools
- How can we use AI as a translation layer to make programming physical matter, molecule folding, or synthetic biological networks easy for non-experts?
- How might low-code visual software tools allow traditional hardware engineers to programme cryptographic keys without deep expertise?
Out of scope
- Ideas that fit squarely within the Scaling Trust programme.
- Ideas that are likely to happen without ARIA support, for example, through other available funding mechanisms.
- Commercial products.