![]() ![]() If all goes to plan, ARPA- H will be on a similar scale, but none of the others receives such funding ( ARPA-E got $425m last year, roughly as much as one of DARPA’s six offices). Progress reportĭARPA’s budget in 2020 was $3.6bn, equivalent to just 8% of the NIH’s. The latter would be less of a legislative challenge, but may infringe its independence. There is a debate about whether the Biden administration’s health ARPA ( ARPA- H) ought to stand alone, or be part of the National Institutes of Health ( NIH). “It has never been allowed to make independent decisions, it has never been allowed an independent budget,” says an observer. In America the homeland-security ARPA was established in 2002, but has been hamstrung by power struggles in the department that gave it its name. The administrative and research directors of Germany’s Cybersecurity Innovation Agency recently quit, frustrated by political interference. Without freedom from political interference, the risk-taking instincts of those at the cutting edge are curbed. Dominic Cummings, a former aide to Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister, who demanded a British agency as a condition of his employment, has said he is concerned by the provisions for ministerial oversight in the legislation creating it. Existing government ministries exert influence through the agency’s board, stymying radicalism, says Ms Diehl. After the auditors issued their recommendations, the agency lost its exemption from standard public-sector procurement rules and pay scales, restricting who it could hire and the sorts of risks it could take. The concept was approved by Germany’s cabinet-“and then the Federal Court of Auditors came along,” sighs Barbara Diehl, SPRIN- D’s chief partnership officer. SPRIN- D illustrates how difficult this can be. The first challenge for the new ARPAs is to secure the breathing space required for such experimentation. DARPA has a boss, a small number of office directors and fewer than 100 programme managers, hired on fixed short-term contracts, who act in a manner akin to venture capitalists, albeit with the aim of generating specific outcomes rather than private returns. ![]() Whereas most use peer review and carefully selected measurements of progress, DARPA strips bureaucracy to the bones (the conversation in 1965 which led the agency to give out $1m for the first cross-country computer network, a forerunner to the internet, took just 15 minutes). Whereas most focus on basic research, DARPA builds things. The result is a mirror image of normal R& D agencies. As Arun Majumdar, founding director of ARPA- E, America’s energy agency, puts it: “If every project is succeeding, you’re not trying hard enough.” Current (unclassified) DARPA projects include mimicking insects’ nervous systems in order to reduce the computation required for artificial intelligence and working out how to protect soldiers from the enemy’s use of genome-editing technologies. Take enormous, reckless gambles on things so beneficial that only a handful need work to make the whole venture a success. On paper, the approach is straightforward. It also needs commitment to the principles which made the original agency so successful-principles that are often uncomfortable for politicians. But as some have discovered, and others soon will, copying DARPA requires more than just copying the name. In many countries there is displeasure with the web of bureaucracy that entangles funding systems, and hope that the DARPA model can provide a way of getting around it. An agency needs agencyĪs governments across the rich world begin, after a four-decade lull, to spend more on research and development, the idea of an agency to invent the future (and, in so doing, generate vast industries) is alluring and, the success of DARPA suggests, no mere fantasy. In Britain a bill for an Advanced Research and Invention Agency-often referred to as UK ARPA-is making its way through Parliament. Japan’s interpretation is called Moonshot R& D. Germany has recently established two such agencies: one civilian (the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation, or SPRIN- D) and another military (the Cybersecurity Innovation Agency). His administration also has plans for another, to tackle climate change. President Joe Biden has asked Congress for $6.5bn to set up a health version, which will, the president vows, “end cancer as we know it”. In America there are ARPAs for homeland security, intelligence and energy, as well as the original defence one. It is the agency that shaped the modern world, and this success has spurred imitators. ![]()
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