The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
Supercomputers, data repositories, telescopes, laboratories and testbeds are expensive shared facilities, and who can use them shapes what science gets done and by whom. Access rules, peer review, costs, skills and connectivity can exclude smaller institutions and researchers in many countries. This page sets out how access to research infrastructure works, how fairness and use are measured, and what evidence serves the funders and operators who set access policy.
GCRI · In development · service level R0
Access to research infrastructure is the set of rules, costs and support that decide who can use shared facilities such as supercomputers, repositories and laboratories. Peer review, skills, connectivity and fees can exclude smaller institutions and researchers in many countries, and federation and training widen reach.
For research infrastructure access, in GCRI's spatial-intelligence reading, the map opens on night lights, true-colour imagery and population density, framed on the contiguous United States; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.
The interactive map needs JavaScript; the layer list and sources are below.
Layers 3
Infrastructure exposure, for this page
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NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
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For research infrastructure access, in GCRI's spatial-intelligence reading, the map opens on night lights, true-colour imagery and population density, framed on the contiguous United States; every other NASA layer, live feed and forecast waits in the layer list.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date; indicators, not assessments of any place; claim ceiling INTEGRATED.
Layers and dates
Cost and governance of scientific facilities. The dossier below sets out how the risk develops, what is measured, where the data come from, how it is modelled and who decides.
Excellence-based review allocates time to the strongest proposals, which can favour well-resourced groups with experience of writing them.
Researchers need training to use advanced facilities. Without support, access in principle does not become use in practice.
Limited bandwidth, travel costs and user fees keep researchers in lower-income countries from using remote and international facilities.
Federated identity, shared allocation schemes and regional hubs let researchers use facilities across institutions and borders.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Excellence-based access | Allocation of facility time by peer review of scientific merit. |
| Wide access | An access mode that opens a facility to as many users as possible with lighter review. |
| Research and education network | A network that connects universities and research institutions at high capacity. |
Each indicator carries its unit, its cadence, the kind of source behind it and the evidence label a value would carry. No values are shown: a programme supplies them under its own authority.
| Indicator | Unit | Cadence | Source type | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Access proposals received and granted | count and success rate | per call | Facility allocation records | OFFICIAL |
| Users by institution type and country income group | count | annual | Facility user records | OBSERVED |
| First-time users | percent of users | annual | Facility user records | OBSERVED |
| Training participants | count | annual | Training records | REPORTED |
| Research network bandwidth to institutions | gigabits per second | per assessment | Research and education network data | OBSERVED |
| Publications acknowledging facility use | count | annual | Bibliometric analysis | ESTIMATED |
The topic as a computational graph: named sources feed the methods, an evidence review gates the outputs, and the decisions stay with the authorities that hold them.
Fig. 02Nodes carry their type, two metric rows and a state; connectors show what feeds what; dashed frames name the owners; the timeline is the cadence. Design of the pipeline, not a record of a run.
Named public datasets and institutional records, each with its licence class. Sources by agreement are used only under their terms and never republished.
| Source | What it gives | Licence class |
|---|---|---|
| ESFRI roadmap and access policies | European research infrastructures and their access rules | Public, EU terms |
| European Charter for Access to Research Infrastructures | Principles for access modes and policies | Public, EU terms |
| EuroHPC and national HPC allocation statistics | Proposals, allocations and users | Public records, terms per body |
| GÉANT and regional research and education network reports | Connectivity of research institutions | Public, terms per network |
| OECD Global Science Forum reports on research infrastructures | International access and governance practice | Public, OECD terms |
Data and Compute prepares evidence. The decisions below are taken by the authorities named, under their own rules, and never by the platform.
| Who decides | The question | Evidence this page serves |
|---|---|---|
| Research infrastructure operators | How to design access policies and user support | Policy reviews; user analyses |
| Research funders | How to fund access for under-served researchers | Diversity and training evidence |
| Regional research networks | Where connectivity limits access | Bandwidth evidence |
Access is shaped as much by everything around a facility as by the facility itself. Network connectivity, local skills, support staff and the time needed to prepare a competitive proposal all decide who can actually use capacity that is nominally open to all.
Construction is often funded once, while operation, staff and upgrades need sustained budgets.
Merit-based allocation is common, but it can favour established groups with experience writing proposals.
Access without training, software and support produces little benefit.
Studying who uses facilities and for what. Limits: data is held by operators and not always shared.
Estimating full lifetime costs with optimization and operations research. Limits: depends on future energy and staff costs.
Comparing access policies across facilities and countries. Limits: contexts differ widely.
Describing what capacity and skills a research community has and needs, the basis of compute readiness maps. Limits: self-reported data can be uneven.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.