The Fast Track Access Scheme is designed and intended for projects representing high impact and requiring flexible access to supercomputing resources. Submissions to the Fast Track Access Scheme must be recognised as high impactful and endorsed by organisations participating in the scheme (list below). The Fast Track Access Scheme also supports time-critical access including response to natural hazards, public health and national security.
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Fast Track Access Scheme is currently available in its initial phase to the Pawsey Partner institution and Western Australia Government departmentsEarly Adopters phase to the institutions listed under Participating Institutions at the bottom of this page. |
Eligibility
Impact scheme supports highly impactful fundamental and applied research projects requiring flexible or urgent access to resources. Eligible categories of projects include:
- Government Stream: research projects and industry collaborations led by Australian federal or state government,
- University and Research Agencies Stream: research projects and industry collaborations led by Australian higher-education institution, research institute or public-funded research agency,
- Time-Critical Stream: urgent compute access to support research or response to natural hazards, public health and national security.
Other eligibility criteria:
- The Lead Chief Investigator (Lead CI) must hold a substantive research position at an Australian academic institution, research organisation or government institution undertaking research.
- Projects submitted to the Fast Track Access Scheme must be endorsed by applicant's host institution (list below).
- A researcher undertaking a higher degree by research, or holding only an adjunct position, is not eligible to be a Lead CI. Students and PhD students are not eligible to be a Lead CI, but can become project members under the auspices of their supervisor.
- Other project participants may be staff or students at academic institutions or research organisations, including those located internationally as well as within Australia.
- The use of Pawsey Project Infrastructure is conditional on complying with relevant laws and export controls, including the Australian Defence Trade Controls Act, United National Security Council (UNSC) sanctions regimes and the Australian autonomous sanctions regimes, and U.S. Export Controls.
Available resources and allocation process
In the initial phase, The Fast Track Access Scheme is available to the Pawsey Partner institution and Western Australia Government departments with total allocation per quarter per institution not exceeding 4M Service Units on Setonix CPU and 2M Service Units on Setonix GPU per quarter per institution. If total or per institution requests are exceeding the scheme capacity or the listed limits, the allocations are decided based on technical assessment (suitability and scalability) with priority given to projects impossible to implement without access to Setonix.
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The above limits and methodology does not apply in the Time-Critical category. Allocations within this category are processed outside of the quarterly process and limits. |
Assessment criteria
The Fast Track Access Scheme operates under the assumption that impact of the research and the need for urgent computing has been assessed and endorsed by the host institution of the applicant. Institutions are expected to manage the prioritisation, as they are the submitters and there is a limited amount of resources per organisation in each quarter. Pawsey Supercomputing Research Centre undertakes an internal review limited only to eligibility check and technical assessment. The following technical criteria are used:
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- Planned scale of workflow in terms of size and number of jobs
Application form and process
The Fast Track Access Scheme operates under the assumption that impact of the research and the need for urgent computing has been assessed and endorsed by the host institution of the applicant. Please see the list of eligible institutions and contact details below.
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In the initial first Early Adopters round (Fast Track Q3 2024), the submission deadline has been extended to 15th July 17th June 2024. |
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The above process does not apply in the Time-Critical category. Submissions within this category are open all year round and are processed outside of the quarterly process. |
To ensure Pawsey has the information needed to properly assess a proposal, a researcher should ensure that they:
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Participating institutions
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| Fast Track Access Scheme is currently available in an Early Adopters mode for the below listed institutions. |
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| Institution | How to access the scheme? |
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Western Australia Government | Projects submitted to the Fast Track Access Scheme must be endorsed by the applicant's WA Government agency. Applications will be considered on a priority basis, with precedence given to those submitted earliest, unless the application bears the endorsement of a Director General from the applying WA Government agency. Director General endorsements are reserved for time-sensitive applications that relate to critical matters such as natural hazards, public health, and national security. More information: Pawsey - Fast Track Allocation Scheme - Guidelines - FINAL .pdf |
CSIRO | Projects using this access scheme need to be endorsed by a research director or delegate from the business unit of the person proposing the project. The project must align with the business unit's strategy. A statement must be made describing why this project needs the allocation sooner than the following January. More information: https://confluence.csiro.au/display/SC/Accessing+the+Pawsey+Facility |
Curtin University | Projects using this access scheme need to must be endorsed by the Curtin Institute for Data Science (CIDS): https://datascience.curtin.edu.au, email: CurtinIDS@curtin.edu.au/ |
University of Western Australia | Projects using this access scheme need to must be endorsed by the University of Western Australia's HPC Team: hpc-admin@uwa.edu.au |
Murdoch University | Projects using this scheme must be endorsed by the Research and Innovation Office. ResearchSupport@murdoch.edu.au |
| Edith Cowan University | Projects using this scheme must be endorsed by the ECU's office of research: http://www.ecu.edu.au/research, email: research@ecu.edu.au |