Emman Khan

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The project focused on evaluating the impact of High Performance Computing (HPC) and Digital Research Infrastructure (DRI) on research at the University of Liverpool and across the N8 ecosystem. As part of the project, I conducted interviews with researchers and analysed a survey of HPC users to understand the impact of the infrastructure from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives. The interviews explored researchers’ experiences before and after accessing HPC, what it enabled that was previously difficult or impossible, improvements in research speed and quality, specific research outcomes, collaboration and funding, as well as barriers to adoption and the support researchers needed. The survey provided broader evidence across HPC users, helping identify common patterns in how the infrastructure was being used, the benefits researchers experienced, and areas where improvements could increase its impact. I then analysed the interview and survey findings to identify key themes and evidence of impact, with particular attention to concrete examples that could contribute to an overall impact narrative for HPC and DRI investment. Overall, the project helped build an evidence base demonstrating the tangible value of HPC and DRI to research, while also highlighting opportunities to expand its impact through greater capacity, awareness, training, and support.

What were the key results of your research project?

• HPC was found to be critical to many research projects, with researchers reporting that some work would have been impossible or significantly more limited without it.
• Significant improvements in research speed were identified, with some computational tasks reduced from days or weeks to hours or overnight.
• HPC enabled researchers to work with larger datasets, higher-resolution data and more complex models, improving the scale and quality of research.
• Researchers reported more robust and reliable analysis, as greater computational capacity allowed them to run more iterations, simulations and statistical tests.
• HPC supported research with real-world clinical, societal and economic applications, including healthcare, medical imaging and global health research.
• Access to HPC was also identified as supporting research grant applications, particularly where large-scale computational work formed a core part of the proposed research.
• The HPC support team and training were considered highly valuable, particularly for researchers and students who were new to HPC.
• A major barrier was onboarding and technical knowledge, particularly familiarity with Linux, terminals, Git, containers and command-line environments.
• The research highlighted a lack of awareness among non-traditional HPC users, with significant potential to expand usage across disciplines such as health sciences and other less computationally focused fields.
• The survey and interviews together provided both quantitative and qualitative evidence, allowing the project to identify broader trends while also capturing detailed examples of individual research impact.

Overall, the findings indicated that HPC investment was not simply improving existing research—it was enabling new research possibilities that would otherwise be computationally infeasible.

Download a copy of Emman's report:

Powering Discovery: The Impact of Digital Research Infrastructure at the University of Liverpool