GCP – Google Cloud initiatives offer researchers critical support during the pandemic

The global pandemic has not only transformed our daily lives, it’s also transforming how academic research is conducted. With many campus labs and facilities closed, researchers struggle with a lack of access to the enormous compute power today’s scientific advances depend upon. And, according to a November 2020 McKinsey & Company report, the challenges of working from home have been shown to place an outsize burden on groups who are already underrepresented in the workforce, such as women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ workers.  By fostering virtual collaboration and expanding access to cloud resources, Google Cloud can help overburdened researchers better manage their workloads in these difficult times. A wide range of new initiatives offers them crucial support.

Join a community of Research Innovators driving scientific breakthroughs

Google Cloud Research Innovators is a new program to help build recognition and credibility within the research community by helping established—and next generation—researchers maximize their impact with Google Cloud. It seeks to speed up breakthrough discoveries, increase collaboration, and deepen support for publications, funding, and tenure. As a research innovator, you’ll get access to Google experts and support from peers to build real world solutions and theoretical models collaboratively. You’ll receive additional Google Cloud academic research credits, marketing support, speaking opportunities, free admission to Google conferences, and more. To pursue this unique opportunity, apply here by January 18, 2021.

Leverage the NIH STRIDES Initiative

NIH-funded researchers can access favorable pricing on Google Cloud through the NIH STRIDES Initiative. STRIDES also helps NIH-funded researchers access consulting resources, training, billing assistance to facilitate data computation, storage, sharing, analysis, and sustainability. NIH STRIDES has also made Coursera licenses available to NIH-funded researcher to help access the full Google Cloud training catalogue. Get started here.

Apply for NSF CloudBank support

The National Science Foundation (NSF) developed the CloudBank portal to make it easy for NSF-funded researchers to use their NSF funding to purchase cloud access on a variety of providers, including Google Cloud. The portal was developed by a team from University of Washington, University of California at San Diego, and University of California at Berkeley, with help from a partner, Strategic Blue. Its training, accounting, and administrative features offer researchers an easy, one-stop hub for all of their grant management needs.

The portal launched in August 2020, and there are already several NSF opportunities available, totalling more than $330 million in funding. Researchers can choose to allocate their entire funding to one cloud provider or divide it across multiple providers. To supercharge your research with CloudBank, apply to the open NSF funding opportunities here.

Discover new NSF Minority-Serving Institutions grants

The NSF recently announced a new initiative to expand Computer Information, Science, and Engineering opportunities at Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs). With roughly $7M in funding, it aims to support researchers through Historically Black colleges, Tribal Colleges, and Hispanic-Serving Institutions, which are central to inclusive excellence: they foster innovation, cultivate current and future STEM talent, and bolster long-term U.S. competitiveness. Google Cloud will provide training on cloud resources and tools as well as extra research credits. For more information and to apply by April 15, 2021, see here.

Solve problems with massive datasets

Since April 2020 Google’s COVID-19 Credits Program has partnered with Harvard’s Global Health Institute to sponsor innovative solutions to the worldwide pandemic. So far, we’ve funded 293 projects with credits totaling over $11M to help power breakthroughs across modeling, drug screening, predictive diagnostic apps, novel TPU research, and more. An international team at Harvard recently won HPCWire’s Best Use of HPC in the Cloud award for their work on VirtualFlow, an open source tool for virtually screening ultra-large chemical databases that analyzed over one billion drug targets for potential COVID-19 treatments in five days.

To start or ramp up your own project, we offer research credits to academics using Google Cloud for qualifying projects in eligible countries. You can find our application form on our website or contact our sales team.