ARIA Opportunity Seeds: Smarter Robot Bodies

Tender description

Breakthroughs require finding people who think differently about what's possible - and empowering them to follow their vision. To support scientific and technological breakthroughs, outside of programmes, ARIA Programme Directors can award opportunity seeds to support ambitious research aligned to the opportunity spaces they've identified. To understand how opportunity seeds work within our model, see how we're working here (https://www.aria.org.uk/how-were-working/). Lot 1: The opportunity space, Smarter Robot Bodies (https://www.aria.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/ARIA-Smart-machines-need-smarter-bodies-v1.0.pdf), led by Programme Director Jenny Read, asks how we can exploit progress in AI, control, materials, and manufacturing to build robots that approach or even exceed the capabilities of living bodies. We're looking to fund high potential proposals with up to £500k each. We initially expect to fund up to 10 opportunity seeds in this space. We're looking for bold ideas that could challenge assumptions, open up new research paths, or provide steps towards new capabilities. If you have an important idea you're obsessed with, but you don't currently have the resources or support to take it forward, we'd like to hear from you. Ideas could come from anywhere, so we welcome applications from individuals and teams who are early in their career or who have atypical backgrounds. We care more about your idea and your intrinsic motivation than we do about your CV.To help you decide if this is the right funding call for you, below is some guidance on the scope. In scope: Ideas that sit within the Smarter Robot Bodies (https://www.aria.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/ARIA-Smart-machines-need-smarter-bodies-v1.0.pdf) opportunity space. By this, we mean your proposal should show how your idea either aligns with or challenges the assumptions of the Summary, Beliefs, or Observations in the opportunity space document (https://www.aria.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/ARIA-Smart-machines-need-smarter-bodies-v1.0.pdf). Ideas that could change the conversation about what is possible or valuable. Ideas that range from early stage curiosity-driven research through to pre-commercial science and technology. Out of scope: Ideas that are within scope of the programme Robot Dexterity - Handling our future (https://www.aria.org.uk/robot-dexterity/). Such ideas should be submitted to that programme funding call (https://www.aria.org.uk/robot-dexterity/). If you are unsure whether your idea is in scope of the programme, ask us by sending an email to clarifications@aria.org.uk. Ideas that are undifferentiated or that are likely to happen without ARIA support. Commercial or close-to-commercial stage products. Beyond this scope and our evaluation criteria outlined in the opportunity seed call for proposals document on ARIA's website here, we don't have preconceptions about what ideas you might send our way. You don't need to contort your project to fit our goals: we want to hear what you really want to do.