A total of 31 A2 projects were approved in the 3rd edition of Computing Projects Calls Advanced.
Applications for the A0 and A1 typologies are open until May 31.

FCT, through its Unit FCCN , announces the provisional results of the A2 - Project or Regular Access typology of the 3rd edition of Computing Projects Calls Advanced, with the approval of 31 computational projects in the A2 - Regular or Project Access typology. In total, around 36 M core hours, 23,000 GPU hours and 760 TB of storage have been allocated. With an approval rate of 60%, the FCT will thus support projects that require computing tools for a total economic value of around €450,000.

The 31 projects will be developed by teams with consolidated and demonstrated prior experience in advanced computing on one of the platforms of the National Network for Advanced Computing (RNCA).

This edition had a new modality of access - Virtual Research Environments (VRE) - to meet the needs of collaboration between researchers from one or more organizations through cloud computing. Of the 31 projects approved, 3 will be developed in VREs, 27 will have access to High Performance Computing (HPC) and 1 project will combine HPC with Cloud Computing (SCC). Around 20 national institutions are supported, including a national R&D company that develops innovative offshore renewable energy solutions.

The teams have 12 months to carry out HPC and SCC projects or 24 months for VRE projects on one of the national platforms - Laboratory for Advanced Computing at the University of Coimbra (LCA-UC), High Performance Computing at the University of Évora (HPC-UÉ) and the National Infrastructure for Distributed Computing (INCD). These centers provide the user community with various computing services (HPC, HTC, Cloud and others, particularly in terms of technological capacity) with the aim of supporting applications in various areas, such as bioinformatics, climate, materials and life science, computational chemistry, physics, and civil engineering among others, enhancing the competitiveness of national research and innovation activities.

The approved projects cover all scientific domains with the following distribution:

  • Physics and Math - 23
  • Chemistry and Materials - 26
  • Life Sciences - 19
  • Engineering and Technology - 13
  • Earth and Environmental Sciences - 13
  • Social Sciences - 6%.

The following demographics are also noteworthy:

  • 74% of the researchers in charge are male and only 26% are female.
  • About 20 national institutions from various regions of the country, including the islands.

The Advanced Computing calls have so far supported more than 300 computing projects from a hundred national institutions, including the autonomous regions of the Azores and Madeira, and have awarded more than 100 M CPU core.hours or vCPU.hours. There have been more than 50 scientific publications and 60 Master's or Doctoral theses associated with projects approved under these calls.

Applications for types A1 and A0 are still open until May 31, 2023 (1pm, Lisbon time).

More information on the FCT website and on the RNCA site.

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