Accelerator Awards fund research projects without suitable grant-funding to use Nimbus HPC. Due to low uptake of these awards in 2025/26 substantial funds remain available for new applications. We encourage academic staff or PhD students with a suitable project to apply for an Accelerator Award in this one-off rapid review round.

Application deadline: 30 June 2026

Award decisions: mid-July 2026

Funding allocations: by 31 July 2026

Please refer to the eligibility requirements below and Apply Now.

PhD students must have agreement from their primary supervisor prior to applying. Successful awards will be allocated by 31 July and available for use on Nimbus HPC from August 2026.

We will review how these awards work in future calls to streamline the process and improve uptake.

Research Computing Accelerator Awards are funded by the university to cover computing costs for research projects requiring Nimbus HPC. The awards provide a central funding mechanism for important, non-grant-funded computational research that departmental budgets can't fund. Academic staff and PhD students from all disciplines can apply for an Accelerator Award. Applications go through a review process, and successful applications will be notified that their funds have been allocated.

Eligibility criteria

Eligible Accelerator Award submissions should meet any of these criteria:

• an initial proof-of-concept study, feasibility test, or pilot project
• a short project critical for a grant preparation or fellowship application
• a project linking consecutive grant applications or which have bridging requirements (e.g. between submitted and awarded grants; max three months)
• a short PhD student project where the student has computational research experience and will be supported by their supervisor

You can submit multiple Accelerator Award applications in any given funding round.

For academic staff who are not on a permanent contract the project must finish on or before your contact end date.

PhD student projects must finish prior to their PhD end date.

How to apply

We are currently accepting applications for the rapid round Accelerator Awards, which are open until 23:59 30 June 2026. We will update this page with the next standard round of funding in due course.

PhD students are welcome to apply but must have approval from their primary supervisor.

Please apply now to let us know:

• your name, department and role
• your supervisor (if you are a PhD student)
• about your research project and expected outcomes
• estimated compute and storage requirements
• research software requirements
• that you have considered whether your request could be covered from your department's Research Computing allocation

The application and assessment workflow for the Research Computing Accelerator Award is currently under review to streamline the process and improve uptake.

Usually there is an application round once per semester. After the deadline has passed the Research Computing Resource Allocation Committee will review all applications and decide which projects to fund.

The committee consists of representatives from the University Faculties, the School of Management and Digital Data and Technology.

Assessment criteria

Applications eligible for support will be assessed against four criteria:

• Achievability of research goals
• Significance of research problem and expected outcomes
• Value for money
• Applicant's research track record from previous award applications

Funding outcome

We will email all applicants to let them know the outcome of their application once this has been decided. For the rapid review awards emails will be sent by 31 July 2026.

What to do if you need help

Please speak to your Research Computing Champion if you need help assessing the suitability of supercomputing for your research project.

For technical advice, such as advice on Nimbus compute instances, storage, or software installations, please request Research Computing support via our via our TOPdesk support form.

For other enquiries about these awards please contact Research Software Engineering team at research-software-engineering@bath.ac.uk.