FEATURE PHOTONICS IN THE ENVIRONMENT


How photonics can close the climate measurement gap


Optics are centre stage in the fight against climate change, say two UK-based professors. They tell Susan Fourtané how the photonics community can get involved


L


ater this year, the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) will launch


a request for proposals for Science Entrepreneurship Partners. ARIA, a new kind of R&D funding agency that was established by the UK government back in January 2023, will fund a range of partners to work on designing, activating, and catalysing bespoke science entrepreneurship activities across, what it calls, seven ‘opportunity spaces’. Gemma Bale, Assistant


Professor of Medical Therapeutics and Head of the Neuro Optics Lab at the University of Cambridge, and Sarah Bohndiek, Professor of Biomedical Physics at the University of Cambridge, who are the programme directors (PDs) of one of those opportunity spaces – Scoping our planet: a new lens on climate science – are developing a programme thesis to address gaps in Earth system measurements that lead to uncertainties in weather forecasting and broader climate predictions. According to Bale and Bohndiek, it is currently possible to fill the existing gaps by harnessing the power of


12 Electro Optics May 2024


optics. “An ARIA programme has three key characteristics. It is designed to unlock a scientific or technical capability that changes the perception of what is possible or valuable in scientific research; must have the potential to catalyse massive social and economic returns; and, critically, be unlikely to occur without ARIA’s intervention,” Bale tells Electro Optics. “An ARIA opportunity space


has the potential to yield genuinely world-changing capabilities – underexplored relative to its potential, and it is ripe for disruption by the introduction of new talent, ideas, or activity,” says Bohndiek. “As Programme Directors, it’s our job to first define an area where we think scientific and technological breakthroughs could make a huge impact on society – but is underserved by other R&D efforts – and then develop a formal programme within it. The idea is that PDs act as a conductor to an orchestra – choosing, directing, and funding a portfolio of projects lining up to the objectives of the programme. That might include projects undertaken by start-ups, SMEs, public labs, corporates, or even individuals – whoever has the


Programme Directors Sarah Bohndiek (leſt) and Gemma Bale (right)


best ideas to get the job done,” Bale explains. In 2015, the world leaders


gathered at COP21 agreed to limit the rising temperature of Earth by 1.5° Celsius


(34.7° Fahrenheit) by 2050. To remain on target, we must halve emissions by 2030. Meanwhile, the year 2023 was the hottest year on record. As leaders of Scoping Our


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ARIA


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