ARIA is an independent funding organisation in Britain, backed by public money. It was established to fund high-risk, high-reward research.
In April 2025 ARIA announced £56.8m ($75.4m) in funding for 21 solar-geoengineering projects over five years, making Britain the largest state funder of such research. The programme is directed by Mark Symes, an electrochemist at the University of Glasgow, and aims to examine "holistically" whether different geoengineering technologies and approaches could ever be effective or scalable.
In February 2025 ARIA announced a five-year, £81m ($109m) programme involving 26 teams to build an "early warning system for climate tipping points". The initial focus is on the breakdown of the Greenland ice sheet and the collapse of the subpolar gyre, a north Atlantic current that helps power AMOC. Teams include the British Antarctic Survey, Oshen (a self-sailing-robot startup) and Marble (a drone-monitoring company).
A bird in the bush usually has a friend in there with him.