Application for Small Activities / Seedcorn time
The purpose of this scheme is to provide a light-touch review process for immediate access to modest allocations of Iris computing time and/or storage for Activities in the following categories:
- Small activities requiring some 10s to 100s of cores for a short time, whether peer reviewed or not;
- Seedcorn projects;
- Activities starting in year (out of RSAP cycle) who need to get going and then submit full RSAP docs next year;
- and possibly other categories as arise from time to time.
These all require relatively modest resource, generally for a limited time in the first instance. For further queries, please contact the IRIS Helpdesk.
Annual Resource Scrutiny & Allocation Process (RSAP)
The IRIS RSAP is an annual process which reviews substantial resource requests from the IRIS partner activities. Requests are scrutinised by an expert panel for their technical validity and a recommendation is made whether the request should be supported. After a list of activities to support is created the RSAP will recommend.
The stages of the review are as follows:
- Call for Requests – IRIS partner activities are invited to submit resource requests describing their scientific objectives, expected impact, technical requirements and resource needs.
- Initial Review – The IRIS team reviews each submission to ensure that sufficient information has been provided and may seek clarification where required.
- Technical Assessment – An expert panel evaluates the technical validity of each request, including the suitability of the requested resources, feasibility, anticipated utilisation and any operational considerations.
- Panel Review – The Resource Scrutiny and Allocation Panel (RSAP) considers all requests, reviews the assessments and discusses the relative priorities of the competing requirements.
- Recommendation Development – Taking account of scientific requirements, technical assessments and available capacity, the panel develops a recommended portfolio of activities to support and proposes resource allocations.
- Approval – The RSAP recommendations are presented through the appropriate IRIS governance process for review and approval.
- Notification of Outcomes – Applicants are informed of the outcome of their request and, where applicable, the level of resource that has been approved.
- Resource Provisioning – Successful activities work with the relevant infrastructure providers to provision resources, establish access arrangements and commence delivery of their scientific programme.
For further details please refer to: RSAP 2025/2026
