Your research project may qualify for an external research compute grant, check out the following
Topic
Research Compute Funding
24 September 2026
HOW TO APPLY
UC researchers who wish to utilise National eScience Infrastructure (NeSI) or Amazon Web Services (AWS) are eligible for an internal cloud research compute fund. Early career researchers and UC academic staff are eligible if they are the primary researcher. Terms and conditions apply.
This fund will be released in a single round in July 2024. For more information please contact the eResearch team at UC, Digital Services or come along to one of our eResearch Clinics on Tuesday at 11am at Room 210 Puaka James Hight Central Library.
UC researchers who wish to utilise National eScience Infrastructure (NeSI) or Amazon Web Services (AWS) are eligible for an internal cloud research compute fund. Early career researchers and UC academic staff are eligible if they are the primary researcher. Terms and conditions apply.
This fund will be released in a single round in July 2024. For more information please contact the eResearch team at UC, Digital Services or come along to one of our eResearch Clinics on Tuesday at 11am at Room 210 Puaka James Hight Central Library.
From the INCITE website:
The US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of science runs a program called INCITE that allows for the use of US national lab computing facilities.
Open to researchers from academia, government laboratories, and industry, the Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program is the major means by which the scientific community gains access to the nation’s fastest supercomputers. The program aims to accelerate scientific discoveries and technological innovations by awarding, on a competitive basis, time on supercomputers to researchers with large-scale, computationally intensive projects that address “grand challenges” in science and engineering.
New INCITE proposals are accepted between mid-April and June 16, 2025.
Note: Between July and early April of the following year, the call is closed to new applications and will display the previous year’s call for proposals. However, you should review the Instructions, since they will provide guidance about the input and format of the proposal for the next allocation cycle.
Proposal authors are encouraged to consider applying for access to the systems in order to carry out porting, tuning, and benchmarking in preparation for an INCITE submittal. Requests for small awards of time (typically less than 75,000 node-hours) can be requested throughout the year from the Director’s Discretionary Program. Contact Us for more details.
This is open to New Zealand Researchers. More information can be found on the INCITE website.
From the INCITE website:
The US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of science runs a program called INCITE that allows for the use of US national lab computing facilities.
Open to researchers from academia, government laboratories, and industry, the Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program is the major means by which the scientific community gains access to the nation’s fastest supercomputers. The program aims to accelerate scientific discoveries and technological innovations by awarding, on a competitive basis, time on supercomputers to researchers with large-scale, computationally intensive projects that address “grand challenges” in science and engineering.
New INCITE proposals are accepted between mid-April and June 16, 2025.
Note: Between July and early April of the following year, the call is closed to new applications and will display the previous year’s call for proposals. However, you should review the Instructions, since they will provide guidance about the input and format of the proposal for the next allocation cycle.
Proposal authors are encouraged to consider applying for access to the systems in order to carry out porting, tuning, and benchmarking in preparation for an INCITE submittal. Requests for small awards of time (typically less than 75,000 node-hours) can be requested throughout the year from the Director’s Discretionary Program. Contact Us for more details.
This is open to New Zealand Researchers. More information can be found on the INCITE website.
NVIDIA runs an academic grant program that is researchers can submit proposals to. The benefits to researchers are:
- Receive NVIDIA cloud, hardware, and/or software grants for research.
- Get access to NVIDIA models.
- Receive letters of support for grant applications related to your project.
- Have the opportunity to present at GTC and network through NVIDIA’s global channels.
- Be considered for NVIDIA marketing support
To qualify for the program, an applicant must:
- Must be a full-time faculty member at an accredited academic institution that awards research degrees to PhD students.
- Must adhere to the requirements included in the proposal template and relevant call for proposals (CFP).
- Must be accelerated with NVIDIA technology.
More details can be found on the NVIDIA Academic Grant website.
NVIDIA runs an academic grant program that is researchers can submit proposals to. The benefits to researchers are:
- Receive NVIDIA cloud, hardware, and/or software grants for research.
- Get access to NVIDIA models.
- Receive letters of support for grant applications related to your project.
- Have the opportunity to present at GTC and network through NVIDIA’s global channels.
- Be considered for NVIDIA marketing support
To qualify for the program, an applicant must:
- Must be a full-time faculty member at an accredited academic institution that awards research degrees to PhD students.
- Must adhere to the requirements included in the proposal template and relevant call for proposals (CFP).
- Must be accelerated with NVIDIA technology.
More details can be found on the NVIDIA Academic Grant website.
Public Cloud
Several public cloud providers provide free research credits to researchers for individual research projects. This would be connected to the researcher and not administered by the University. Cloud Research Credits can be a useful resource for research compute on public cloud resources where there is no funding available.
The eResearch team is available to assist you with information and support for applying for cloud research credits.
Eligibility
- Full-time faculty at an accredited research institution.
- Full-time research staff at an accredited research institution.
- Graduate, post-graduate, or PhD students enrolled at accredited research institution.
Application Details
- Detailed project description (a problem statement, project summary, proposed use of specific Amazon Web Services (AWS) products and services, project timeline and key milestones).
- Plan for sharing outcomes (tools, data, and/or resources) created during project.
- Any potential future use of AWS beyond credit award duration by individual, research group, or broader community.
- Names of any AWS employees you have been in contact with (this is not a prerequisite for the application).
- Any AWS Public Data Sets to be used in your research.
Program Details
- AWS Cloud Credit for Research awards are in the form of AWS Promotional Credit. All credit is subject to the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions. Note that AWS Promotional Credit cannot be applied to charges for any upfront fee for any services.
- The AWS Cloud Credit for Research Program Team will receive and evaluate applications on a rolling basis throughout the year. Typical review cycles are 30 to 60 days—please account for this evaluation timeline when considering applying to the program.
- Student awards are capped at a maximum of $5,000.00. Faculty and Staff awards are not capped. Recipients may not receive the full credit amount requested in their application.
- If you are awarded AWS Promotional Credit for no-cost usage of applicable AWS services, the AWS Promotional Credit will be valid for one year from the time AWS Promotional Credit is applied to the account or until the credit has been fully utilized.
- Application decisions are communicated via aws-research-credit@amazon.com. Please check your spam folders.
- For additional information, please read our AWS Cloud Credit for Research FAQs.
- See the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions.
- Research credit will not support administrative workloads, operations, and ongoing or established research projects. Research credit will not support general lab projects or ongoing research. Applications for the general funding of a lab will not be accepted.
- Projects should fall into one of three project types:
- proof of concept or benchmark for comparison
- development of repeatable, sharable solutions
- advanced workshops or tutorials.
Eligibility
- Full-time faculty at an accredited research institution.
- Full-time research staff at an accredited research institution.
- Graduate, post-graduate, or PhD students enrolled at accredited research institution.
Application Details
- Detailed project description (a problem statement, project summary, proposed use of specific Amazon Web Services (AWS) products and services, project timeline and key milestones).
- Plan for sharing outcomes (tools, data, and/or resources) created during project.
- Any potential future use of AWS beyond credit award duration by individual, research group, or broader community.
- Names of any AWS employees you have been in contact with (this is not a prerequisite for the application).
- Any AWS Public Data Sets to be used in your research.
Program Details
- AWS Cloud Credit for Research awards are in the form of AWS Promotional Credit. All credit is subject to the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions. Note that AWS Promotional Credit cannot be applied to charges for any upfront fee for any services.
- The AWS Cloud Credit for Research Program Team will receive and evaluate applications on a rolling basis throughout the year. Typical review cycles are 30 to 60 days—please account for this evaluation timeline when considering applying to the program.
- Student awards are capped at a maximum of $5,000.00. Faculty and Staff awards are not capped. Recipients may not receive the full credit amount requested in their application.
- If you are awarded AWS Promotional Credit for no-cost usage of applicable AWS services, the AWS Promotional Credit will be valid for one year from the time AWS Promotional Credit is applied to the account or until the credit has been fully utilized.
- Application decisions are communicated via aws-research-credit@amazon.com. Please check your spam folders.
- For additional information, please read our AWS Cloud Credit for Research FAQs.
- See the AWS Promotional Credit Terms & Conditions.
- Research credit will not support administrative workloads, operations, and ongoing or established research projects. Research credit will not support general lab projects or ongoing research. Applications for the general funding of a lab will not be accepted.
- Projects should fall into one of three project types:
- proof of concept or benchmark for comparison
- development of repeatable, sharable solutions
- advanced workshops or tutorials.
Eligibility
- Faculty, PhD student, or a Postdoctoral researcher at a regionally accredited academic institution or nonprofit research institution.
Application Details
- You will need to submit a research proposal outlining how you plan to use Google Cloud credits. You will also need to submit an estimate on expected costs using our pricing calculator. Finally, please make sure that you create a Google Cloud billing account before you apply to the program. For more information, check out this video.
- In general, we review and make decisions on applications within 4-6 weeks.
- Only one person per research proposal may apply.
- PhD students conducting research may apply for $1000 in GCP Credit per year. Faculty and Postdoctoral researchers are eligible for one award of up to $5,000 USD. Students on a Masters degree program are not eligible for research credits.
- Our referral program allows you to receive additional credits for referring other faculty researchers to the research credits program. If you refer two qualified applicants to our program, then you can qualify for a new research grant. If this sounds like a path to pursue, please have your referrals apply to our program and share their university email addresses with us after you’ve confirmed with them that they’ve applied (with their matching university email address).
Program Details
- Cloud credits can be used for most computing services on Google Cloud such as storage, compute, and data analysis. Credits must only be used for research described in the proposal section of your application.
- Limitations: Google Cloud credits cannot be used for Maps Platform products or for Google Cloud support packages. Google Cloud credits may not be used to engage in mining cryptocurrency. Please note that credits are awarded at Google's discretion. Google reserves the right to not grant credit awards, revoke credit awards, and to change the qualifying criteria at any time.
- You should acknowledge the connection between your project and your use of Google Cloud Platform via a research credit, with a statement like the following: “This material is based upon work supported by the Google Cloud Research Credits program with the award GCP19980904.”
- Credit awards expire 365 days from the credit issuance date, or when the credit amount has been fully used, whichever comes first.
- Costs can be estimated using the Google Cloud Pricing Calculator.
- For more information, contact gcpresearchcredits@google.com.
Eligibility
- Faculty, PhD student, or a Postdoctoral researcher at a regionally accredited academic institution or nonprofit research institution.
Application Details
- You will need to submit a research proposal outlining how you plan to use Google Cloud credits. You will also need to submit an estimate on expected costs using our pricing calculator. Finally, please make sure that you create a Google Cloud billing account before you apply to the program. For more information, check out this video.
- In general, we review and make decisions on applications within 4-6 weeks.
- Only one person per research proposal may apply.
- PhD students conducting research may apply for $1000 in GCP Credit per year. Faculty and Postdoctoral researchers are eligible for one award of up to $5,000 USD. Students on a Masters degree program are not eligible for research credits.
- Our referral program allows you to receive additional credits for referring other faculty researchers to the research credits program. If you refer two qualified applicants to our program, then you can qualify for a new research grant. If this sounds like a path to pursue, please have your referrals apply to our program and share their university email addresses with us after you’ve confirmed with them that they’ve applied (with their matching university email address).
Program Details
- Cloud credits can be used for most computing services on Google Cloud such as storage, compute, and data analysis. Credits must only be used for research described in the proposal section of your application.
- Limitations: Google Cloud credits cannot be used for Maps Platform products or for Google Cloud support packages. Google Cloud credits may not be used to engage in mining cryptocurrency. Please note that credits are awarded at Google's discretion. Google reserves the right to not grant credit awards, revoke credit awards, and to change the qualifying criteria at any time.
- You should acknowledge the connection between your project and your use of Google Cloud Platform via a research credit, with a statement like the following: “This material is based upon work supported by the Google Cloud Research Credits program with the award GCP19980904.”
- Credit awards expire 365 days from the credit issuance date, or when the credit amount has been fully used, whichever comes first.
- Costs can be estimated using the Google Cloud Pricing Calculator.
- For more information, contact gcpresearchcredits@google.com.
Eligibility
- Full-time faculty at an accredited research institution.
- Full-time research staff at an accredited research institution.
- Graduate, post-graduate, or PhD students enrolled at accredited research institution.
Application Details
- Detailed project description (a problem statement, project summary, project timeline and key milestones).
- Plan for sharing outcomes (tools, data, and/or resources) created during project.
Program Details
- Student awards are capped at a maximum of $5,000.00. Faculty and Staff awards are not capped. Recipients may not receive the full credit amount requested in their application.
- Research credit will not support administrative workloads, operations, and ongoing or established research projects. Research credit will not support general lab projects or ongoing research. Applications for the general funding of a lab will not be accepted.
Eligibility
- Full-time faculty at an accredited research institution.
- Full-time research staff at an accredited research institution.
- Graduate, post-graduate, or PhD students enrolled at accredited research institution.
Application Details
- Detailed project description (a problem statement, project summary, project timeline and key milestones).
- Plan for sharing outcomes (tools, data, and/or resources) created during project.
Program Details
- Student awards are capped at a maximum of $5,000.00. Faculty and Staff awards are not capped. Recipients may not receive the full credit amount requested in their application.
- Research credit will not support administrative workloads, operations, and ongoing or established research projects. Research credit will not support general lab projects or ongoing research. Applications for the general funding of a lab will not be accepted.
Not available in New Zealand. Currently only open to US institutions.
Not available in New Zealand. Currently only open to US institutions.
