UK Compute Roadmap – Community Centres of Excellence
UK Compute Roadmap – Community Centres of Excellence supports researchers and innovators through community-led services, training and compute access to broaden use of national computing resources.
Funder: UK Research and Innovation
Due Dates: January 12, 2027, 4:00pm UK time (Outline closing) | November 11, 2026, 11:15am UK time (Webinar) | June 1, 2027 (Latest project start)
Funding Amounts: Up to £2 million for up to three years, at 100% full economic cost; £20 million total fund
Summary: Establish community-owned centres providing stewardship, specialist services and access to UKRI National Compute Resources for researchers and innovators.
Key Information: Centres must deliver all three core functions: community stewardship, user support services, and compute access and allocation.
Description
UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) will fund a network of Community Centres of Excellence (CCEs) connecting researchers and innovators with its National Compute Resources (NCRs). The programme supports the UK Compute Roadmap 2025 through community-owned services, specialist expertise and coordination. It aims to lower access barriers, broaden the user base beyond academia, and maximise the research, societal and economic benefits of national computing investment.
Centres may focus on research fields, shared computational approaches, technologies, workflows, resources or cross-disciplinary challenges. Supported activities include training, outreach, knowledge exchange, research software engineering and integration of data, software and compute. Field-specific centres must share expertise, training and support beyond their immediate communities. Each centre must demonstrate added value beyond existing NCR services and direct access routes.
