Empowering scientists to reach for the edge of the possible

Activation Partners: Request for Proposals

We've launched a £100m call to recruit up to 10 new Activation Partners to design and run bespoke activities across our opportunity spaces. Alongside science translation, we’re expanding our scope, drawing on insights from our AI Scientist initiative to apply advanced AI capabilities – from AI for Science models to autonomous labs – to our funded-R&D.

Programme Funding

Accelerated Adaption: Full proposals

This ~£54m programme will explore potential pathways to accelerate the adaptation of wild species in order to prevent biodiversity loss and secure the natural infrastructure that underpins our global economy and human health. Alongside technical research, the programme will explore the ethical and governance implications of potential interventions from the outset. We're now inviting proposals from teams working across fields like ecology, evolution, biological engineering, conservation, ethics, robotics, and AI.

Programme Funding

Scaling Trust: Multi-Agent Security Arena

We are now looking for a partner to co-design, build and maintain the Scaling Trust Arena, which we plan to launch in Q3 2026. Acting as an extension of the Scaling Trust programme team, this partner will be capable of operating at pace, to deliver a robust, modular testing ground that can move from prototype to public operation over the course of the programme. The ideal partner will help shape the Arena’s fundamental mechanisms including challenge design, scoring systems and community interfaces, whilst ensuring the platform remains secure, observable and accessible to a global community of participants.

Programme Funding

Enduring Atmospheric Platforms: Full proposals

ARIA is launching a programme backed by at least £50 million to unlock the stratosphere as a persistent operating environment. The goal is to solve the interdependent challenges of flight and energy to create a resilient and sustainable platform layer between Earth and space. Success will be measured by a single, galvanising demonstration: keeping a platform aloft for one week while maintaining line-of-sight to a fixed ground point and continuously powering a 300W payload. This technical breakthrough will provide the physical backbone required for next-generation advanced communications, serving as a critical enabler for the projected £13–20 trillion annual economic potential of AI.

Opportunity Seed

Rolling opportunity seeds

Building on our previous funding calls for opportunity seed projects, we’re launching an open rolling call for proposals as an experiment across multiple opportunity spaces. We’re keen to learn from this process and use the lessons to make future calls stronger and more effective. We're looking to fund projects within the Mathematics for Safe AI, Nature Computes Better, Scoping Our Planet and Scalable Neural Interfaces opportunity spaces, with up to £500k each.