HPC Grant Program Overview/ Guidelines
Program Purpose:
- Provide the opportunity for faculty to create or expand collaborative research with ORNL in scientific areas of discovery requiring HPC capabilities.
- Provide ORAU member institutions the opportunity to create a strategic partnership with ORNL through alignment of faculty research with ORNL’s science agenda.
- Enhance the development of the future workforce in scientific discovery through computing by providing real-world experiences for students.
Roles/Responsibilities:
- ORAU: Provide funding for grants.
- ORNL: Provide access to ORNL’s computing resources and staff collaboration on research projects.
- ORAU Member Institutions: Demonstrate institutional commitment as appropriate in support of faculty research proposed.
- Faculty-Student Teams: Propose research to be performed using ORNL’s HPC resources that
- has significant scientific merit.
- develops or expands the faculty member’s research program.
- aligns with ORNL’s cross-cutting science agenda.
Grant Details:
- Anticipated Funding Amount: $75,000 grant ($25,000 per year) for up to three years. Paid in a lump sum each year.
- Type and Number of Grants:
- Competitive grant renewable for up to three years.
- Two grants awarded per year.
- There are no restrictions on how long faculty members have to use the grant monies. However, significant progress, as demonstrated in a report to ORAU/ORNL on research outcomes at the end of each grant year, will determine what warrants second- or third-year funding.
- Ultimately, in steady state, six awards would be in place in an individual year. Desired mix would be three awards to principal investigators experienced in the application of high-performance computing and three awards to principal investigators with a desire to become involved in high-performance computing, with one of these three grants being awarded to a historically black college or university.
- Allowable Grant Expenditures: Grant monies may be used for any expenditures related to proposed research that are deemed appropriate by proposing faculty member. While no specific restrictions are indicated for how grant funding will be spent, preference will be given to faculty-student teams spending time at ORNL.
Team Eligibility Information:
- Program is open to faculty-student teams proposing research in any scientific area. The proposed research does not have to be in computer science, but rather could be research in any scientific discipline that would benefit in some way from the application of high-performance computing resources.
- Team makeup and number would be at the discretion of the faculty member, however preference would be to support a team consisting of a faculty member with a graduate or undergraduate student(s).
- Team must be from an ORAU member institution (including associate members).
- Faculty members must be in a tenure-track position at their institutions.
- Students must meet the requirements for access to ORNL as set forth by the laboratory.
Intellectual Property Rights:
Rights to intellectual property developed as a result of the HPC Grant Program will be determined by a variety of factors.
- In order to use ORNL's high performance computing facilities, HPC Grant Program awardees will be required to sign a “Non-Proprietary User Agreement.”
- With respect to patents, the “Non-Proprietary User Agreement” provides that the user may elect to obtain the entire right, title, and interest in any patent application filed and in any resulting patent secured.
- In addition, under the terms of the agreement, the user reserves an irrevocable, nonexclusive, paid-up license in each patent application filed and any resulting patent in which the user does not elect to retain title or in which the government acquires title.
- However, other factors such as intellectual property terms and conditions associated with any additional sources of funding or the intellectual property policies of the grantee’s home institution may impact the allocation of intellectual property rights resulting from the HPC Grant Program award.