Travel awards: Boosting collaboration in computational fluid dynamics

Dr Neil Ashton (University of Manchester) travelled to the 2015 AIAA SciTech conference in Orlando, Florida at the beginning of the month to host several UK-US events with the British Foreign Office (FCO) designed to boost collaboration in the fields of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Fluid Dynamics. At the heart of this was a working lunch between members representing academia and industry from the UK and US. Representatives from NASA, Boeing, Lockheed Martin & Stanford University represented the U.S side and senior academics from the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, University of Manchester and the University of Liverpool spoke for the UK. Whilst these was only the first steps, there was a general feeling that better collaborations between the UK-US could help to solve some of the greatest challenges for CFD and Fluid Dynamics for the aerospace sector. Funding mechanisms were discussed as well as key priorities for future research. Further meetings later this year will start to formalise some of these plans and hopefully lead to some concrete actions to provide mechanisms for US and UK researchers to start collaborations in the fields of CFD and Fluid Dynamics.

This event was funded through the UK-US HPC network and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Science and Innovation team.

Open call for UK/USA travel awards supporting HPC enabled research

The EPSRC network "Driving UK HPC enabled science and innovation through US collaborations" (http://ukusahpc.blogspot.co.uk; @ukusahpc) invite applications from UK based early career researchers who require travel support for collaborative visits to research institutions in the USA. Applications to support US researchers at any level to the UK on short-term research visits or workshops are also encouraged. The award will cover flight, conference fees and accommodation up to a limit of £2,500.

Application deadline: The application deadline is the last Friday of each month. The final date will be the 30st of June 2015 - or when the budget is spent so do not delay.

Guidelines

As with previous calls, the purpose is to stimulate HPC enabled science and innovation through US collaborations. This may include developing collaborations with US research communities and industries, as well as programs such XSEDE, INCITE and Energy Efficient High Performance Computing Working Group.

Applications are limited to two pages with 12pt font consisting of:

• Research objectives.
• Any existing collaborations with US researchers/organizations.
• Plans to disseminate your experience to the wider community.
• Statement of expected sustained impact on applicant’s ongoing research or the UK research community.
• Applicant’s track record.

In covering these points it is important that applicants address questions such as:

• Why is the application is more than just attending a conference?
• Why travel is needed rather than remote collaboration?
• Why this fund rather than from the travel budget from a standard research grant?
• How are you going to spread the impact beyond yourself?

Applications should be submitted as a PDF by email to Gerard Gorman .

Applications will be accessed by a technical committee comprised of members of the academic community, UK HPC laboratories and industry.