Eligibility to use the Nectar Research Cloud and Nectar Services

Eligibility criteria are provided based on services available on the Nectar Research Cloud, including the Nectar Dashboard and Managed Services.

Nectar Dashboard

When you log into the Nectar Research Cloud Dashboard for the first time, this will create a project trial for you to try out Nectar with a small amount of resources. Anyone with an AAF or Tuakiri account (University/Institutional login)* can access the Nectar Dashboard and a project trial, which automatically begins when someone logs in for the first time. You can follow our support article on Getting an account.

To access a larger budget of resources over a longer period, you will require a project allocation. You can request a project allocation by completing the allocation request form on the Nectar Dashboard. A request for a project allocation on the Nectar Research Cloud can be approved as either:

• a local allocation by a specific Nectar Node. If you are a member of (or collaborating with) a University or Institution which belongs to one of our Nectar Nodes, you may be eligible for a local allocation. Approval of a local allocation is entirely at the Node’s discretion.
• or a national allocation assessed by the Nectar Allocation Committee.

For information on the distinction between local and national allocations, and the eligibility criteria for a national allocation, please read our support article on National and Local Allocations.

National allocation eligibility

The Research Cloud National Allocation Scheme (RC-NAS) policy specifies that a project allocation request can only be approved as a national allocation if your project satisfies one or more of these criteria:

1. Your research is currently funded through a national or international research grant.
2. Your research is funded by, or supports, a National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) capability, including the ARDC (for example: an ARDC Research Data Commons project).
3. You have a grant from a federal or state government department or agency for research projects that supports industry, or university research that is directly or jointly funded by industry.
4. You have been approved by the Nectar Allocation Committee as warranting a nationally prioritised allocation.

For detailed information on national allocation eligibility, please read our support article on National and Local Allocations.

Managed Services

Regardless of whether you fulfil the criteria for an allocation, there are managed services with limited resources available to use, for anyone with an AAF or Tuakiri account (University/Institutional login)*. These include:

• Virtual Desktop Service
• Jupyter Notebook Service
• BinderHub Service

*Access without AAF or Tuakiri

If you do not have an AAF or Tuakiri account (University/Institutional login), you may be able to arrange access, please read our support article on How to get access if your organisation doesn't support AAF.