Matt Clifford is stepping down as founding chair of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency, the UK government’s high-risk research funding body, five days after taking a full-time government-affairs job at Anthropic. Clifford announced his decision on September 7, 2026, and ARIA confirmed that he will remain in post on an interim basis, in agreement with the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, while the agency begins the search for a new chair. In his statement, Clifford…