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Advanced Computing Projects Call | 4th Edition

High Performance Computing (HPC), Virtual Research Environments (VRE) and Scientific Cloud are the three resources. The fourth edition of the initiative led by FCNN – a Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) unit -, has now its applications open!

The FCT – through the National Network for Advanced Computing (RNCA) – is organising a fourth edition of the Advanced Computing Projects Call. Applications opened on October 26th and the closing dates vary.

Aiming at allocating computational resources to Projects in all scientific and innovative domains, with reference to international technology standards, the computational models available to the applicants are High Performance Computing (HPC), Scientific Cloud and Virtual Research Environments (VRE).

In order to provide resources, more than 300 million CPU core.hours or vCPU.hours will be made available on different RNCA platforms, which act as operational centres. The selected projects will be supported by the National Distributed Computing Infrastructure (INCD) through the Cirrus (HPC) and Stratus (cloud) systems, by Navigator – operated by the Laboratory for Advanced Computing at University of Coimbra (LCA-UC) -, and by Oblivion and Vision – operated by the High Performance Computing Infrastructure of University of Évora (HPC-UÉ).

This year, two new platforms will debut along with the Larger Access typology (A3), which will give access to the newly installed Deucalion, at the Minho Advanced Computing Center (MACC) and MareNostrum 5, at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center.

The competition has four distinct access typologies, each of which has different application deadlines.

  • Experimental Access (A0) – intended for teams with no previous experience or history of using RNCA resources. Several batches of applications between 26/10/2023 and 30/5/2024
  • Development Access (A1) – recommended for software performance testing, code optimisation, scalability testing, benchmarking, re-factoring or for short duration projects. Several batches of applications between 26/10/2023 and 30/5/2024
  • Regular Access (A2) – recommended for scientific or innovation projects whose team has consolidated previous experience and needs resources in Navigator, Oblivion, Vision, Cirrus and Stratus platforms. Applications between 26/10/2023 and 19/12/2023
  • Larger Access (A3) – recommended for scientific or innovation projects whose team has consolidated previous experience and require larger amounts of resources on the Deucalion or MareNostrum 5 platforms. Applications between 19/12/2023 and 8/2/2024.

Among those eligible to apply are: Research and Development (R&D) institutions – including private non-profit institutions -, collaborative laboratories (COLAB), technological interface centres (CIT), science and technology infrastructures, networks and consortia, companies that develop advanced computing projects in research, development and innovation activities and individuals operating in the country who wish to develop advanced computing projects in any scientific area.

The three previous editions were very successful and approved more than 350 projects and 110 million CPU core.hours on RNCA computing platforms!

You can find detailed information about the applications, the form and the conditions, as well as the selection methods on the FCT website or at myFCT.