The chief executive of the UK’s moonshot research agency has defended the funder’s partnerships with US firms, under pressure from peers.
Kathleen Fisher, leader of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria), told the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee that the benefits outweighed the risks of collaborating with US-based organisations.
During the 8 September hearing, former science minister Paul Drayson pressed Fisher on why most of Aria’s collaborators, “activation partners”, were based in the US, given that the publicly funded agency has a mandate to deliver economic benefit to the UK.
Fisher said that Aria had made agreements with “world-class deep tech investors, who know how to convert science into world-class companies”, with the condition that they “establish UK operations and to invest all the money in the UK”. Fisher said that it is more important that the company “doesn’t die”, irrespective of where investment comes from.
But Drayson argued that the UK’s problem is not attracting investment for discoveries, but rather commercialising research. He asked if Aria should prefer UK investment partners, citing a Lords report published last year that tracked science companies leaving the UK.
