The government of the United Kingdom will Friday announce a new £800 million military research agency that was spearheaded by former Boris Johnson aide Dominic Cummings.
The military research agency known as Advanced Research & Invention Agency (Aria) will be “tasked with funding high-risk research that offers the chance of high rewards” and is set to be launched next year.
A statement from the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial (Beis) said Aria will fund the most inspiring inventors to turn their transformational ideas into new technologies, discoveries, products and services.
The agency is based on the US’ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), which has overseen the creation of experimental military technologies.
Darpa and its predecessor agency have been responsible for the invention of the internet, GPS and a series of dog-shaped cyborgs.
The creation of the UK’s own experimental military technology agency was a pet project of Cummings, who wrote a 2018 blog post about how Britain’s post-Brexit priorities should be forming its own Darpa and reforming Whitehall.
The Times reported earlier this week that Aria will not be subject to the UK’s Freedom of Information laws.
The initiative has generated a lot of mixed reactions with Labour’s shadow business secretary Ed Miliband said the government needed to “clarify” the mandate of the new agency.
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