Telescope Foundation is proud to announce the latest development in its partnership with The Ditchley Foundation and the UK’s Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) to build the cross-sector network behind one of the most ambitious early-warning efforts in climate science today.
ARIA’s Forecasting Tipping Points program is an £81 million initiative led by Programme Directors Professor Gemma Bale and Professor Sarah Bohndiek of the University of Cambridge. The program is working to build an early warning system for climate tipping points, the critical thresholds beyond which changes to the Earth’s systems become abrupt, severe, and difficult to reverse. The goal is straightforward but urgent: equip the world with the information it needs to build resilience and act before challenges become crises.
Brilliant science alone doesn’t change how the world prepares for what’s ahead. It takes the policymakers who set regulation, the insurers and investors who price risk, and the scientists who build the models. Turning frontier science into global resilience is not only a technical challenge, it’s a human one. That’s why ARIA selected Telescope Foundation and The Ditchley Foundation to build an engaged community of technical talent, policymakers, finance leaders, and entrepreneurs to tackle this challenge.
This is exactly the kind of work Telescope Foundation was built for: finding exceptional people and connecting them to the problems that need them, across sectors and across borders, before the moment of crisis. The Ditchley Foundation brings decades of experience convening leaders across governments and institutions to work through the world’s hardest problems.
Together, The Ditchley Foundation, ARIA and Telescope see this partnership as a working model for how frontier science reaches the real world: scientists, investors, policymakers, and innovators co-designing the path from possibility to implementation.
Today, we’re proud to name the inaugural cohort of fellows joining the Forecasting Tipping Points programme — a cross-sector group spanning finance, insurance, government, science, and communications:
Paul Buckley (UK)
Paul Buckley is a Principal Scientist at Cefas, Defra's executive agency for marine science, with more than 20 years' experience at the science-policy interface on marine and coastal climate change. As programme manager for the UK Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership, he works with hundreds of leading UK scientists to translate climate science for decision-makers, and contributes to ARIA's TiMBER project as a communications specialist studying how tipping points in the North-East Atlantic could affect the UK fisheries sector.
Astrid Krizus (Canada)
Astrid Krizus is Climate and TD Economics Communications Manager at TD Bank Group, where she supports the bank's sustainability strategy and external thought leadership. She previously served as Deputy Director of Communications and Climate Advisor in the Prime Minister of Canada's Office, and as lead speechwriter to Canada's Prime Minister, translating climate policy into clear public narrative.
Andrew Forth (UK)
Andrew Forth is Head of Policy & Advocacy at Climate Group, a global NGO working with more than 650 businesses and nearly 200 subnational governments to accelerate the path to net zero. He previously served as Director of Policy & Public Affairs at the Royal Institute of British Architects, and has also worked at the Confederation of British Industry and as a researcher in the UK Parliament.
Julie Calkins (UK, USA)
Julie Calkins leads foresight research and advocacy on climate and nature risk at Generation. Trained as a natural systems scientist, her career spans Antarctic research, ocean and atmospheric modelling, and public health, including work with the UK government with Chief Scientific Advisors and UKRI. She previously mobilised tens of millions of euros in investment for new ventures through a European Commission-funded programme on climate risk and adaptation.
Laura Wellesley-Squires is Forest, Land and Agriculture Lead at Arc, a non-profit building the information infrastructure needed to unlock investment in resilient, sustainable food and agriculture systems. She was previously a Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House, researching food system resilience, chokepoint and compound risk in global food trade, and the structural barriers to sustainable agribusiness transition.
Zahrah Fauzee (UK)
A qualified actuary with a background in financial modelling, he began his career at a Big Four consultancy specializing in credit loss modelling and helping banks assess corporate and sovereign credit risk. Now working in asset management, he focuses on portfolio construction, asset allocation, and multi-asset investment strategy, with a particular interest in how macroeconomic trends, climate, and other emerging risks shape financial markets. Currently pursuing CFA Level I, he enjoys combining quantitative analysis with strategic market insights to inform investment decision-making.
Nick Bæk Heilmann (Greenland and Denmark)
Nick Bæk Heilmann is a Greenlandic advisor specialising in Arctic and Greenlandic affairs, helping international organisations, researchers, and policymakers understand Greenlandic perspectives on climate change, sustainable development, and Arctic geopolitics. Drawing on experience at Greenland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Denmark's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Danish Embassy in London, he brings expertise in Arctic governance, stakeholder engagement, and Inuit cultural context.
Jakob Mökander (UK, Sweden)
Dr Jakob Mökander is Vice President, Policy – Europe & UK at General Catalyst, a global venture capital firm. He previously served as Director of Science & Technology Policy at the Tony Blair Institute, building and leading a team advising political leaders in more than 40 countries on AI adoption, research funding, and digital sovereignty. He holds a PhD from the University of Oxford focused on AI auditing and governance, and remains affiliated with Yale's Digital Ethics Center.
Aikaterini Liakopoulou (Belgium)
Aikaterini Liakopoulou is a board member, executive advisor, and deeptech scaling specialist working at the intersection of deeptech and venture capital. Since 2017 she has partnered with the €10 billion European Innovation Council Fund, the European Investment Bank, and the European Institute of Technology, and advises founders through Breakthrough Energy, NATO DIANA, and the European Union Agency for the Space Programme, among others.
Ryan Allison (UK)
Ryan Allison is Climate and Nature Investment Research Lead at Standard Life plc, where he develops the Group's climate and nature investment strategy and its suite of climate and nature risk metrics. A Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries, he has co-authored papers for the IFoA Biodiversity and Natural Capital Working Party and was a lead author of recent nature-related publications through the joint PRA-FCA Climate Financial Risk Forum.
Ruth Bryson (UK)
Ruth Bryson is Head of Responsible Business – Stewardship, Climate and Nature at Royal London, the UK's largest mutual life, pensions and investment company, where she leads the development of its sustainability strategy, climate risk management, and approach to responsible investment. An actuary by background, she has previously developed climate scenario analysis for insurers and pension providers, including for the Climate Financial Risk Forum.
Over the coming months, the fellows will work alongside ARIA’s team to help translate frontier climate science into a practical roadmap for decision-makers, due to be published this fall. We’ll share more from this partnership as the work progresses, including reflections from the fellows themselves and a closer look at how the programme’s early warning system is taking shape.
Learn more about ARIA’s Forecasting Tipping Points programme and follow Telescope Foundation and The Ditchley Foundation on LinkedIn for updates.
