CHRONOS (Computationally-Intensive, High-Impact Research On Novel Outstanding Science) is an annual call for proposals issued by CSCS for high-impact, challenging and innovative research opened to all fields of science. Researchers from academia and research institutes are eligible to apply. The CHRONOS proposals can be awarded for one year.

If you wish to submit a CHRONOS project you need to provide the following documents (in PDF format):

• Your CHRONOS project proposal as by the template (see below)
• Your curriculum vitae
• Your list of publications 

The  portal for the proposal submission is : projectoffice.cscs.ch

CHRONOS on Alps is an annual call. The next deadline for submission of CHRONOS proposals is Monday May 18, 2026 at 17 CEST, for the allocation starting on October 1, 2026.

***Please note that the submission portal closes at 17:00 CEST. After this time, it will no longer be possible to submit a proposal.***

CHRONOS on LUMI-G can be biannual if resources are available. The next deadline for submission of CHRONOS proposals on LUMI-G is Monday May 18, 2026 at 17 CEST for the allocation starting on October 1, 2026!

***Please note that the submission portal closes at 17:00 CEST. After this time, it will no longer be possible to submit a proposal.***

Proposers must hold at least the position of postdoctoral position at an academic institution. 

PhD students cannot apply independently and must submit proposals in consultation with, and under the auspices of, their supervisor. In such cases the supervisor must be identified as the Principal Investigator (PI) of the project.

International applications (and collaborations) will be accepted only if proposers and their teams are affiliated with academic institutions and use of GPUs is clearly proved and supported by all appropriate technical data. 

The same proposer cannot submit more than 2 proposals per Call.

Double-awarding is not permitted. Applicants must submit original proposals that have not been submitted and/or funded in any other HPC/AI programs.

Proposers whose project proposals are approved must hold an academic position for the full duration of the project. CSCS reserves the right to close the project otherwise.

Principal investigators have to apply for:

• the HPE Cray EX LUMI-G at CSC (Swiss share) > 1 Mio GPU hours
• the HPC vCluster on the Alps Infrastrcuture > 250'000 node hours

All mandatory items have to be performed on the LUMI-G and  Alps Grace-Hopper (GH200).

If LUMI-G is your targeted system, your resource request must be at least 1 million GPU hours. LUMI-G is configured with 64-core AMD Trento CPUs and 4 AMD MI250X GPUs per node (further information on LUMI can be found here:https://www.lumi-supercomputer.eu/lumis-full-system-architecture-revealed/).

For the HPC vCluster on the Alps infrastructure, the minimum request is 250,000 node hours (1 Mio GPU hours).

If you do not have access to the targetted system please contact projectoffice(at)cscs.ch.

The CHRONOS Tier-0 projects are expected to address high-impact, challenging and innovative research problems in all fields of science involving highly parallel and scalable simulations and in need of large allocations.

The project proposal must conform to these requirements:

• Length: no longer than 20 A4 pages including graphs and references
• Font:  Arial or Times New Roman and font size 11 using single line spacing
• Margins: at least 2.54 cm in all directions. These requirements apply to all sections of the proposal

The project proposal should strictly follow the template and guidelines provided here:

• CHRONOS_Tier-0_Technical_Guidelines » 
• CHRONOS_Tier-0_Project_scope_and_plan »

The documents that need to be submitted are:

• Project Proposal (pdf format)
• Curriculum Vitae (pdf format)
• Publication List (pdf format)

VERY IMPORTANT:  All applicants must apply for a Preparatory Project, unless they already have access to Alps. Preparatory access allows you to port your code, test it, and collect all the information necessary for a CHRONOS Tier-0 Project Proposal.

Please be aware that proposals rejected in previous calls may not be resubmitted!

Awards are made based on the quality and scientific impact of the research, as well as the suitability of the proposed simulations for the requested resources.

The review process is structured as follows:

• Complete proposals will be subjected to a technical feasibility assessment
• Complete proposals will be subjected to scientific review, carried out by reviewers from an international pool. Each proposal will be evaluated by three peer reviewers
• Based on the technical and scientific reviews, a panel committee of scientific experts will rate the projects and make a final allocation recommendation

Applicants do not receive intermediate feedbacks. Communication will only happen within 2-3 weeks from the SAC meeting

This is an annual call for proposals on Alps. The allocation period starts on October 1.

The deadline for submission of proposals is May 18, 2026 at 17 CEST.