Need

We invite relevant Solvers from our Innocentive community to participate in this significant funding opportunity with the UK Advanced Research & Invention Agency (ARIA).

ARIA is seeking high-potential idea proposals – with funding of up to $650,000 - to build a new cyber-physical trust infrastructure.

This is a significant funding programme for Solvers, potentially from across the world; please note though the need for conducting >50% project work in the UK which is clarified in the next sections.

Ideas could range from early stage curiosity-driven research through to translational and close-to-commercial science and technology.

Ideas could come from anywhere, so ARIA welcome proposals from individuals and teams who are early in their career or who have atypical backgrounds. ARIA care more about your idea and your intrinsic motivation than about your CV.

Specific areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Nature cryptography: New approaches to security based on physical, chemical or biological processes, including molecular systems that record biological change, built-in physical time delays, tamper-evident quantum materials, or guarantees grounded in thermodynamic costs.
• Programmable reality: Tools and materials that allow physical systems to sense, compute, adapt or enforce boundaries without conventional digital hardware, including soft matter, synthetic biology and mathematical methods for containing dynamic biological networks.
• Trust tools: Interfaces, software and AI systems that make it easier for non-experts to design, programme and verify physical, molecular or biological security systems, including low-code tools for cryptographic hardware and programmable matter.

ARIA welcomes Solver applications from fields including, but not limited to: Cryptography, Information Science, Molecular Chemistry and Synthesis, Advanced Materials Science, Synthetic Biology, Systems Engineering, Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Human-AI Interaction, Cognitive Security, Hardware and Silicon Security, Astrophysics, and Social Sciences.

Collaboration Opportunity

Both UK based and non-UK based Solvers are welcomed.

Solvers interested to apply from outside of the UK can partner with Wazoku:

• to help you to meet the funding requirement to conduct the majority of the project work in the UK (>50% of project costs and personnel time is required)
• and for exceptional circumstances if ARIA accepts your reasoning for less of the work to take place in the UK
• see more guidance in the eligibility tab

In return, Wazoku will retain a partnering share of 30% of any funding you are paid; allow for this in your application. Funding opportunities range from $15,000 to $650,000.

Read more and gain access to the application platform by registering your interest!

Submissions to this Challenge must be received at the application platform by 11:59 PM (US Eastern Time) on July 26th, 2026.

Eligibility

We welcome Solver proposals from across the Innocentive R&D ecosystem, including individuals (including those not affiliated with an organization), universities (including proposals from students, postdocs and staff), research institutions, small companies and charities.

If you are a non-UK based applicant you should note that the primary focus will be on those willing to conduct the majority (> 50%) of the project from the UK.

If you are currently not operating in the UK, and the majority of the work will be conducted in the UK, you should state to ARIA that you will achieve this by partnering with UK based Wazoku.

ARIA may, in exceptional circumstances, award funding to applicants whose projects will primarily take place outside of the UK (also achieved by partnering with Wazoku), with their believe it is unique/compelling and/or the UK would miss out if not funded.

In this case, ARIA will need to know your location and your perspective on how the funded project would benefit the UK either immediately or in the long term. Benefits may include:

• enhancing economic growth in the UK
• fostering scientific innovation in the UK
• enhancing the quality of life in the UK (or both in the UK and internationally)

Background

Trust 'building blocks', like encryption, enable digital industries to flourish securely, but they don't extend into the physical world. With emerging technology blurring the line between digital and physical, a new trust infrastructure that straddles both worlds could unlock cyber-physical markets.

Out of Scope

• Ideas that fit squarely within the Scaling Trust programme, which is building the trust infrastructure capability: open-source tools and scientific foundations for agents to securely interact across digital and physical worlds, combined with a live adversarial arena to stress-test everything we build - these are the core focus of a separate Trust Everything, Everywhere programme.
• Ideas that are likely to happen without ARIA support, for example, through other available funding mechanisms.
• Commercial products.