Decarbonisation is the only sustainable route out of the climate crisis, but environmental changes are outpacing current mitigation efforts. ARIA is seeking proposals for “opportunity seeds” – funding of up to £500,000 for early-stage research that explores new pathways for climate adaptation and resilience.
ARIA are interested in ideas ranging from early-stage, curiosity-driven research through to advanced translational science. Specific areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Carbon dioxide removal: Novel concepts to accelerate the drawdown of atmospheric carbon.
- Extreme weather forecasting: Breakthroughs in predicting extreme weather events to better prepare vulnerable systems.
- New ideas related to solar geoengineering: New ideas related to solar geoengineering, strictly excluding proposals specifically designed to investigate the potential to alter the Earth’s surface temperature by affecting planetary albedo, incoming solar radiation, or the atmosphere’s emissivity – as these are the core focus of the main Exploring Climate Cooling ECC programme.
The opportunity space, ‘Future Proofing Our Climate and Weather’, is undertaking careful and responsible research to understand climate interventions, and whether they could protect the planet and society from climate tipping points, and asks “What if we could expand our options for adaptation and lay the groundwork for informed choices in a drastically altered climate?”. ARIA are looking to fund high potential proposals with up to £500,000 each, and initially expects 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 ‘Future Proofing Our Climate and Weather’ 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
Examples of what is in scope include:
- Ideas related to carbon dioxide removal (CDR)
- Ideas related to improved prediction of extreme weather events
- Ideas related to solar geoengineering, but excluding proposals designed specifically to investigate (via experimentation or modelling) the potential to alter Tsurf by affecting planetary albedo, solar incoming radiation, or atmospheric emissivity from the equation shown on page 11 of the programme thesis. This is because the latter are the specific scope of the main Exploring Climate Cooling programme.
Out of scope:
- Ideas that explicitly and squarely fit within the scope of Exploring Climate Cooling, as described in the programme thesis link to thesis
- Ideas that are likely to happen without ARIA support, for example, through other available funding mechanisms
- Commercial products
- Ideas related to emissions reduction
- Ideas related to improved energy efficiency of buildings, vehicles, etc.
- Proposals that do not conform to the governance mechanisms and principles outlined in the “suggested framework for outdoor experiments” section of the programme thesis and programme oversight and governance processes and documentation