Departing Darpa deputy director to head up UK’s new science funding body

Peter Highnam is to become the first chief executive of the UK’s new ‘high-risk, high-reward’ science funding body. Highnam will take the reins at the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria) from May this year, leaving his current role as deputy director of the US Defence Advanced Projects Agency (Darpa).

The formation of Aria was first announced almost exactly a year ago, driven by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser Dominic Cummings. The government states that the agency, which began its search for a leader in June, will have a budget of £800 million to invest in high-risk scientific research, with ‘minimal bureaucracy’. Aria is modelled on Darpa, a US research agency that supports development of new technologies for the country’s military. Innovations that have sprung from Darpa-supported projects include drones, GPS, weather satellites and some vaccine technologies.