These projects are meant for work on codes and algorithms.

Projects of more than 10'000 node hours are granted based on scientific merit and technical feasibility. Development Projects of less than 10'000 node hours on the HPE Cray EXSupercomputer will be admitted based on technical evaluation only.

Development projects on systems other than Alps Grace-Hopper will be discussed case by case.

If you wish to submit a Large Development Project Proposal you need to have (in pdf format):

• Your development project proposal including all the mandatory items listed below
• Your curriculum vitae
• Your list of publications  

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

The next deadline for submission of production proposals is on  Monday May 19, 2025 at 17 CEST for the allocation starting on October 1, 2025!

***Be aware that the submission portal closes at 17:00 CEST, after that you will no longer be able to submit a proposal!***

If you wish to submit a Small Development Project Proposal please submit your proposal together with the CV and the publication list (all in pdf format) on the web portal projectoffice.cscs.ch

Small Development Project Proposal can also be submitted at any time and are not restricted by any deadline.

Proposers must hold at least the position of post-doc within an academic institution.

PhD students CANNOT apply on their own, but instead must do so in consultation with, and under the auspices of, their supervisor. In such cases the supervisor should be identified as the Principal Investigator (PI) of the project.

International applications will be accepted only if proposers and their team are from academic institutions and use of GPUs is clearly proved and supported by all technical data.

The same proposer cannot submit more than 1 development project per year.

Double-awarding is not allowed. Applicants have to submit original proposals that have not already been submitted and/or granted in any other HPC programs.

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

Small projects (< 10'000 node hours on the HPC vCluster on Alps, from 6 months up to 1 year; proposal up to 5 A4 pages)

• Brief statement of your goals
• Brief description of research method
• Outline of development
  • Current status of software, benchmarks and scaling
  • Algorithms and implementation (clear description of the algorithm development is required)
  • Programming and parallelization approach
  • Milestones
• Infrastructural requirements (type of hardware, debuggers, etc.)

The allocations of small development projects on other CSCS systems are discussed case by case. Small development projects can only ask for up to 5TB of storage.

Please note that the same research group can submit ONLY ONE small development project per year! PIs or members of the PIs' group submitting a large development project cannot apply for a small one. Small development projects have to be followed by the submission of large proposals in the National and Tier-0 calls.

We allow a max 5 accounts per small project.

Small development projects have to be submitted (together with the CV and the publication list all in pdf format) via the web portal projectoffice.cscs.ch in the "Small Project Submission" call. There is no deadline, they can be submitted at any time. The 2025 submission opens on January 2, 2025

Large projects (> 10'000 and < 250'000 node hours per year, up to 3 years)

The project proposal must conform to these requirements:

• Length: no longer than10 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

And it must contain the following information:

• Intended applications: Outline of background and significance
• Intended applications: Scientific goals and objectives
• Description of research methods and algorithm development
• Outline of development
  • Current status of software, benchmarks and scaling
  • Algorithms and implementation (clear description of the algorithm development is required)
  • Programming and parallelization approach
  • Project plans: tasks and milestones
• Resource justification
• Infrastructural requirements (type of hardware, debuggers, etc.)
• Duration of the project (up to 2 years only)

Multi-year Submissions :

• Multi-year project proposals must have a research plan that justifies the multi-year request and 2 clearly defined milestones for each year. These milestones will be checked at time of renewal.
• Only professors can submit multi-year proposals up to three years.

The allocation requested must be per year, that is you need to provide the total number of node hours required for the first year of your project.

Please note that lack of any of the mandatory parts may result in rejection of the proposal.

Small development projects (< 10'000 node hours)

• Complete proposals will be assessed by technical evaluation. Technically reasonable proposals will be accepted within two months from submission

Large development projects (> 10'000 and < 250'000 node hours)

• Complete proposals will be subjected to technical feasibility assessment
• Technically feasible proposals will be passed forward to scientific review, conducted by reviewers from an international pool
• Based on technical and scientific reviews a panel committee of scientific experts will rate the proposals and make a final allocation recommendation

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

There are two allocation periods for Production Projects and Large Development Projects on CSCS HPC systems starting on: April 1st and October 1st.

Deadlines »

Please click here » for information on the renewal report.

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