Get Access

Imperial provides research computing resources for all College researchers, with some services being free at the point of use. Read our RCS charging structure web page for more information and advice.

The HPC and RDS facilities provided by the RCS are only suitable for storing "Public" and "Unrestricted" data. It is important to ensure that the data you wish to store/use on these facilities complies with these data classifications before you use them. There is further guidance (including definitions of these data classifications) on the Saving my files page.

You must be registered on RCS systems prior to using them.

Get access accordion

Get access to High Performance Computing

The High Performance Computing service provided by Imperial College is available for all College researchers. The standard service is free at the point of use. It is assumed that all users of Imperial College’s HPC service agree to the terms and conditions of use.

You must be registered in order to access the HPC service: 

  • Senior permanent academic staff: Please register yourself for access (Imperial accounts only - you must be on the campus network or otherwise follow the guidance for Accessing services when off campus to access the RCS self-service portal). Once you are registered you may register members of your group. Please note that by doing so, you accept responsibility for their behaviour on the systems.

  • Post-docs, PhD and research postgraduate students:  Please contact your group leader or supervisor who will be able to register you. 

  • Undergraduates and taught postgraduates:  Our systems are for research only; if you are working on a computational project your supervisor may elect to register you. Please consult with them.

  • Academic visitors:  Visitors will require an Imperial account - they will not be able to access the service with a guest account. To arrange this, your department's nominated ICT Contact should raise a request via ASK. This request should be a for "An external user account  for HPC access", and must include the visitor's full name and business email, as well as the hosting researcher at Imperial's name. It should also include an expiry date (accounts can be active for a maximum of one year). Once the account has been created, the visitor can be registered for the service by any permanent member of academic staff using the process above.

Get access to the Research Data Store

Every project on the Research Data Store must be associated with an active research project grant or GL code, even if there won't be any charges associated with the project.

If you are the Principal Investigator, registered Co-Investigator or have been granted delegated access to a project code, you may register for one or more RDS projects via our self-service portal (Imperial accounts only - you must be on the campus network or otherwise follow the guidance for Accessing services when off campus to access the RCS self-service portal). You can also use the self-service portal to monitor usage, grant access to others and update the associated research project grant (or GL) code and quota.

Non-project account codes may also be used to register RDS projects, but they do not receive any standard entitlement and you must contact us before trying to register a project.

Once you have created an RDS project, please go to the RDS user guide for information on accessing and managing your RDS project.