By Tom Espiner
Business reporter, BBC News
The UK is to launch a “high-risk” science agency to look for ground-breaking discoveries.
The agency, Aria, will be run along the lines of US equivalents that were instrumental in the creation of the internet and GPS.
Aria, which has £800m funding over four years, will have a “higher tolerance for failure than is normal”, the government said.
Labour said the government needed to clarify what the agency would do.
The new body – the Advanced Research & Invention Agency (Aria) – would fund “high-risk, high-reward” scientific research, the government said.
But the amount of funding it will get is a fraction of the money pumped into existing government research bodies such as UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).
Categories: Biotechnology, Nanotechnology, Science, Science and Technology, Technology