  The accurate prediction of the electronic properties of materials at a low
computational expense is a necessary conditions for the development of
effective high-throughput quantum-mechanics (HTQM) frameworks for accelerated
materials discovery. HTQM infrastructures rely on the predictive capability of
Density Functional Theory (DFT), the method of choice for the first principles
study of materials properties. However, DFT suffers of approximations that
result in a somewhat inaccurate description of the electronic band structure of
semiconductors and insulators. In this article we introduce ACBN0, a
pseudo-hybrid Hubbard density functional that yields an improved prediction of
the band structure of insulators such as transition-metal oxides, as shown for
TiO2, MnO, NiO and ZnO, with only a negligible increase in computational cost.
