The Creator experience
We're building a new kind of research agency that does things differently.
What you can expect as an ARIA R&D Creator
An R&D Creator (or Creator for short) are the individuals, teams who receive ARIA programme or opportunity seed research funding.
As a Creator, you’re responsible for driving the success and direction of your project, as well as its day-to-day progress and management. Programme Directors work with Creators to provide guidance and support on individual projects, empowering Creators to advance their goals while maintaining accountability and stepping in for critical decisions when necessary.
To do this effectively, we expect some of the ways we’ll work together will be different from the ‘usual’ way of doing things.
Joining a programme as a Creator is a significant commitment, with time spent together in workshops and whole programme events. There is regular contact with the Programme Director and reporting throughout the year to deliver on agreed milestones at a fast pace.
To provide maximum freedom, opportunity seeds are designed to be light-touch – while still making sure you’re supported. You’ll meet with the Programme Director or a member of their core team at least quarterly, as well as being invited to join workshops and events.
'Failure' is learning
We are focused on transformative breakthroughs. So we know not every project or experiment will work out the way we expect.
When that happens, we celebrate the ‘failure’ as a learning or pivot. This is reflected in our funding agreement, project reporting and reviews, as well as more generally in our approach.
We want to learn as fast as possible. That means we want to take a ‘fail fast’ approach, tackling the most uncertain parts of a project early on. If we find an approach that isn’t going to work, this is of high value, even if it doesn’t always feel like it at the time.
We expect that at least 30-50% of projects may have major changes of direction – this may mean closing down projects where we don't see a reasonable path to take the project forward, and doubling down on others with additional funding or support.
What we expect from you
There are a few values that are critical to how we work, and that we expect our Creators to follow.
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Bring a collaborative and inherently optimistic mindset
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Respectfully challenge one another to improve
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Celebrate course corrections, and look for solutions
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Approach our work with authenticity and intellectual honesty, acknowledging our own biases
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Commit to open conversations: about our progress, expectations, feelings and feedback
We'll ask you to bring a low-ego, low-politics and (importantly) an inclusive mindset to our work together, and of course we’ll do the same in return.
"As Creators, we appreciate the efforts ARIA's made to streamline the admin processes, helping us spend more time advancing the project. The technical staff have all the experience and expertise to support us, yet put their trust in our team to manage the project as we see fit."