Free Globus Subscriptions Available to Research Non-Profits
CHICAGO – May 27, 2026 – Globus, the leading research data and compute management platform developed by the University of Chicago, today announced a new initiative to democratize access to enterprise-grade data services. Effective immediately, Globus is offering free Standard subscriptions to any non-profit organization with an annual research budget of less than $4 million.
This initiative is designed to level the playing field, ensuring that resource-constrained organizations have the same powerful tools for data sharing, transfer, and management as the world’s largest research universities and national laboratories.
“For too long, the ‘digital divide’ in research has been exacerbated by the cost of sophisticated data infrastructure,” said Vas Vasiliadis, Chief Customer Officer at Globus. “By removing the financial barrier for smaller non-profit research institutions, we are empowering a more diverse array of scientists and researchers to focus on their mission—whether that’s curing diseases, discovering new materials, or setting public policy—rather than the complexities of data management.”
Al Anderson, MS-CC Director of Cyberinfrastructure Programs says “This new initiative will enable researchers at our smaller member institutions to more easily collaborate with others in their field. It will also help them streamline their workflows through the many time-saving features in Globus. Ultimately it will allow them to better participate on a global scientific scale.”
Smaller institutions often operate with lean IT teams and tight margins, yet they generate and analyze increasingly massive datasets. Managing this data via manual methods or consumer-grade cloud storage is often insecure, slow, and prone to error. A Globus subscription will deliver several key benefits to these organizations:
- Reliable, High-Speed Data Transfer: Move terabytes of data between systems, labs, or institutions with a simple web interface. Globus manages the technical heavy lifting, automatically resuming transfers if a connection is dropped.
- Secure Collaboration: Easily share datasets with external collaborators at other institutions without requiring them to have local accounts on the organization’s servers.
- Reduced IT Overhead: As a cloud-native service, Globus requires minimal local maintenance, allowing small teams to manage complex data workflows without hiring specialized systems administrators.
- Enhanced Data Integrity: Built-in checksums and verification ensure that data arrives at its destination bit-for-bit identical to the source, a critical requirement for reproducible science.
By expanding access to its platform, Globus aims to accelerate the pace of innovation across the entire non-profit sector. This move aligns with the organization’s mission to provide sustainable, interoperable infrastructure for the global research community, and extends beyond the current free subscription program offered to NSF Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC*) awardees. Those who are interested in applying for a free subscription should visit globus.org/subscriptions.
About Globus
Globus is a data management and compute platform used by leading non-profit and commercial research organizations, national laboratories, and government facilities worldwide. Operated by the University of Chicago, the Globus data management service enables secure, reliable file transfer, sharing, remote computation and automation throughout the research lifecycle. The Globus platform supports access to all types of storage systems and diverse computing resources, from lab servers and campus clusters to cloud and supercomputing environments. Globus connects more than 50,000 organizations in over 80 countries. For more information, visit globus.org.
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