The OCRE Cloud Framework was launched at the beginning of 2021. It is an OJEU-compliant procurement framework, created by GÉANT and forms part of the wider Open Clouds for Research Environments (OCRE) project. It provides a more efficient way to buy public cloud services for education and research.
To encourage the adoption of the OCRE Cloud Framework, and to promote the benefits of public cloud services for the research and education community in the EU and the UK, GÉANT has announced a call for adoption funding, requiring that researchers collaborate with their national OCRE public cloud resellers and providers on compelling proposals.
The budget available is a minimum of EURO 100K per project up to a maximum of EURO 500k. This provides the opportunity for GÉANT to divide the available funds between the available cloud platforms, spreading the budget across the EU and the UK in order to get representative cloud platform usage and the best value for the EC adoption fund. Each individual research project should have a minimum value of EURO 100K, and each cloud provider and reseller should have a maximum of three (3) projects.
The funding and procurement call opened on the 26th of April and will close on the 7th of July 2022.
We encourage researchers and research groups based in UK institutions to consider working with the OCRE supplier of their preferred cloud platform to bid for funding under this call and collaborate with the supplier on the submission of a proposal which:
- Clearly highlights your research in terms of discipline and relevance.
- Describe how your project can demonstrate the significant impact that cloud-based digital services will have on the related activities and outcomes.
- Shows how your research institute, department, and the project could tell a compelling story about digital services accelerating European research
Criteria that will be in scope for the funding are:
- The cloud services used must be present within the cloud provider’s service portfolio and available under the OCRE Cloud Framework (minimum of 75% of total costs).
- All costs for services associated directly with the IT aspects of the project.
- Costs associated with storing the research project results with the cloud provider for a maximum of two years (at the discretion of the institution) after the completion of the project.
- The reseller or cloud provider’s professional services costs (maximum of 25% of total costs).
- The reseller or cloud provider is responsible that the cloud infrastructure is secure. These T&M-based costs may include:
- Architecture & design
- Landing zone creation
- Training for researchers
- Reporting on progress and budget depletion
- Creation and execution of an exit strategy after the completion of the project.
If you want to know more, or if you want to be put in touch with the supplier of your preferred cloud platform, please contact the Jisc OCRE Cloud Framework team at cloudframework@jisc.ac.uk, or visit OCRE Funding and Procurement Call.
