Cloud Research Credits

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. 

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

• 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.