Today the NCMAS has announced the call for applications for the 2012 calendar year National Computational Merit Allocation Scheme (NCMAS), available to researchers from Australian public sector research organisations, including universities.
The NCMAS, which derives from the former NCI Merit Allocation Scheme, provides an integrated application platform enabling access to computational and data storage resources on major national computational facilities.
In 2012, the NCMAS will provide access to the:
- MASSIVE, the NCI Specialised Facility for Imaging and Visualisation (See http://www.massive.org.au). [Ed.Note -- VPAC Member institutions may access MASSIVE directly through VPAC.
- NCI National Facility systems (seehttp://nf.nci.org.au),
- Pawsey Centre supercomputer system - iVEC@Murdoch (see http://www.ivec.org/Supercomputing/Facilities/iVEC%40Murdoch /Epic%40Murdoch), and
- NCI Specialised Facility in Bioinformatics (see http://ncisf.org)
Accordingly, access through the NCMAS for researchers from universities, and other publicly-funded research organisations, is not charged. Commercial usage of these facilities is not permitted under the NCMAS, and suitable arrangements for such usage must be negotiated separately with the relevant facility operator.
For 2012, the value of the resources allocated under the NCMAS is approximately 10c per core hour, an amount which can be stated as a contribution to future research grant applications (e.g., ARC and NH&MRC).
Applications to the NCMAS are assessed on research quality, and computational merit and need, by an expert committee of peers using criteria described at http://ncmas.nci.org.au/policies/MAC_criteria.php.
Applications, which close on Friday, 4 November 2011 at 9:00 am (Australian Eastern Daylight Time), must be completed on the web forms available at http://ncmas.nci.org.au/applications. As is described there, chief investigators (i.e., the researchers who lead the program of research to be supported by the NCMAS) must separately complete or update their CV information prior to the submission of the application form.
For any assistance with the NCMAS application process, please contact ncmas-help@ncmas.nci.org.au.
Further details on the National Computational Merit Allocation Scheme are available at http://ncmas.nci.org.au/. Please pass on this email and URL to any potential new applicants.