Our Vision

The ACCESS Allocations Service envisions the nation's cyberinfrastructure ecosystem being accessible and equitably available for all researchers and educators no matter the size of the institution, the scale of the planned work, the discipline of the research, or the demographics of the requester. To achieve this vision, we are creating and continuously improving upon an open, inviting, and democratized allocations marketplace that aims to be a welcoming gateway for participation by all. To ensure that the allocations processes benefit everyone, diversity, equity, and inclusion considerations and feedback collection are woven into every aspect of our project. 

Within our marketplace, we have implemented an efficient, scalable, and simplified request and review framework to guide the handling of allocation requests. Our project types allow for multiple points of entry to accommodate your needs, whether you're looking for a small-scale allocation for an undergraduate class or pursuing a multi-grant, computationally intensive research effort. And by making many allocation awards in ACCESS Credits, a universal currency, we want to empower our community to easily get your first project, explore the many ecosystem options and identify the resources best suited for your objectives. ACCESS Credits also allow Resource Providers to manage exchange rates for their resources in the marketplace and allow us to more easily integrate novel resources and usage modes into the allocations process.

We are building our innovative allocations ideas on top of a robust, decentralized, and flexible software platform called the eXtensible Resource Allocation Service (XRAS). XRAS currently supports not only ACCESS but also multiple organizations that operate independent allocations processes. XRAS further serves as our foundation for innovation, integration, and scalability. Through our Innovative Pilots, we are pursuing transformative advances to the allocations landscape and disrupting the notion of the ACCESS ecosystem being a compute-centered environment.