EPSRC Opportunity to Access to High Performance Computing

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) has launched the High Performance Computing (HPC) opportunity to provide an open and flexible route to computational support for projects in the EPSRC remit. A wide variety of activities are supported, and high risk/high return research projects, embracing new concepts or techniques are particularly encouraged.

The individual computational projects funded through this call will be required to:

Conduct high-quality research of which the majority is within EPSRC remit.

Make efficient use of the computational resource by ensuring the codes are run on technically suitable system(s) and that they scale appropriately.

Use the entirety of their allocation within a year of the project start date, unless an extension is awarded by EPSRC.

The services available are ARCHER2, the Tier-1 national supercomputer accessible to engineering and physical sciences researchers, and most of the EPSRC funded Tier-2 HPC services, including: Isambard, Kelvin-2, JADE, Cirrus, NICE, CSD3, Baskerville, and Sulis. While EPSRC’s final Tier-2 service – the Materials Modelling Hub – is not accessible through this opportunity, it can be accessed through EPSRC’s Materials Chemistry Consortium (MCC) and UK Carr-Parrinello Consortium (UKCP).

Applicants must be resident in the UK and based at one of the following: higher education institution; research council institute; UKRI-independent research organisation; NHS body with research capacity. 

Individual applicants must meet at least one of the following eligibility criteria:

Be employed at the submitting research organisation at lecturer level or equivalent.

Hold a fixed-term contract that extends beyond the duration of the proposed project, and the host research organisation is prepared to provide all the support normal for a permanent employee.

Hold an EPSRC, Royal Society or Royal Academy of Engineering fellowship aimed at later career stages.

Hold fellowships under other schemes.

Each applicant is limited to be an investigator (PI or Co-I) on at most one proposal to each service. Research technical professionals, including research software engineers, are considered as academic employees and are therefore are eligible to be a principle or co-investigator under the same terms as traditional researchers.

Students wishing to access the HPC resources available through this call must seek an eligible PI to apply on their behalf, who will oversee the preparation of the proposal and who will be responsible for how any time awarded is used.

Applicants can, in general, request ARCHER2 or Tier-2 computing resource for a maximum duration of one year. EPSRC encourages applicants to contact the service they are applying to early, to discuss whether the level of resource they are requesting is realistic and reasonable, and to refine this whilst completing their technical assessments.

This call uses a two-stage application procedure. In the first stage, applicants should submit a Technical Assessment to the service they are requesting access to by the 2 April 2021 (16:00) deadline. Applicants must then submit an application form by the 30 April 2021 (16:00) deadline.

The start date of each funded project must be within two months from the notification of outcome. If the relevant service is not operational at the time of notification, then applicants are expected to start their project within two months of the start of service as determined by EPSRC

More information about this research funding opportunity and the application process is available on the RESEARCHconnect funding information platform. RESEARCHconnect provides up-to-the minute content, insight and analysis on research funding news and policy. To find out more about how RESEARCHconnect can keep you in the know, and subscription fees, contact us today.