HPC Call for Proposals

2017 INCITE Call for Proposals

This particular call is closed.

If you want information related to next year's call for proposals, please fill out the form here.

The Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program promotes transformational advances in science and technology for computationally intensive, large-scale research projects through large allocations of computer time and supporting resources at the Argonne and Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (LCF) centers, operated by the US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. INCITE seeks research enterprises for capability computing: production simulations-including ensembles-that use a large fraction of the LCF systems or require the unique LCF architectural infrastructure for high-impact projects that cannot be performed anywhere else.

INCITE is currently soliciting proposals of research for awards of time on the 27-petaflop Cray XK7, "Titan," and the 10-petaflop IBM Blue Gene/Q, "Mira," beginning calendar year (CY) 2017. Nearly six billion core-hours will be allocated for CY 2017. Average awards per project for CY 2017 are expected to be on the order of 75 million core-hours for Titan and 100 million core-hours for Mira, but could be as much as several hundred million core hours. Proposals may be for up to three years.

Overview Marta Garcia Martinez (left), an assistant computational scientist at ALCF, works with a researcher at the Mira Performance Boot Camp. The ALCF holds this annual scaling workshop to help attendees prepare for future INCITE proposals.

Marta Garcia Martinez (left), an assistant computational scientist at ALCF, works with a researcher at the Mira Performance Boot Camp. The ALCF holds this annual scaling workshop to help attendees prepare for future INCITE proposals.

INCITE issues an annual call for proposals of high-impact, computationally intensive research campaigns in a broad array of science, engineering, and computer science domains. Individuals and teams of researchers from academia, national laboratories, and industry are eligible to apply, and awards of one, two, or three years are granted. If you answer "yes" to the following questions, INCITE may be right for you:

Is your science campaign outpacing the computing resources available to you?
Do you have a long-term vision for your research campaign, over a period of years rather than months?
Can your workflow and data management strategies allow you to effectively use an INCITE-sized award?

INCITE awards are large-often one hundred times greater than more generally available allocation programs-and a limited number of projects are selected each year. Campaigns chosen by the INCITE program typically cannot be performed anywhere else and require extremely large high-performance computing (HPC) systems, large awards of time, very large memory, or other unique LCF architectural infrastructure to succeed.

INCITE supports research that answers high-impact, key scientific or technical questions or points to new areas of research. Accomplishments by INCITE researchers are frequently seen in Nature, Science, and other highly visible journals.

Eligibility

The INCITE program is open to US- and non-US-based researchers and research organizations needing large allocations of computer time, supporting resources, and data storage to pursue transformational advances in science and engineering. INCITE considers requests regardless of funding source.

The intent of INCITE is to support large-scale, computationally intensive projects that would not be possible or productive without petascale computing. Requests that represent less than 1 percent of the total allocable time on the system may be more appropriate for another program.

The program encourages community proposals that reflect community consensus on, and participation in pursuing, a particular investigative strategy for addressing a grand-challenge-scale science problem. This consensus should be in large part reflected in the proposals management plan, which describes how the problem will be tackled and the interrelationship of the activities of each of the proposal team investigators.

The program does not encourage umbrella proposals, which is defined to be a collection of individual proposals aimed at various aspects of a particular science problem but with no clearly articulated interrelationship of the activities of each of the proposal team investigators and/or that do not exploit the unique capabilities of the leadership facilities.

Resources

Awards of time are made on the leadership-class systems at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL). Sixty percent of time on the leadership-class systems (the Cray XK7 at ORNL and the IBM Blue Gene/Q at ANL) is allocated through INCITE.

Titan is the OLCF�s hybrid-architecture Cray XK7 system with a theoretical peak performance of more than 27 petaflops.

Mira is the ALCF�s 10-petaflops IBM Blue Gene/Q supercomputer.

Researchers may request access to more than one LCF center. A full description of the resources available under this call can be found at the system descriptions and includes important details that all applicants should review prior to proposal submittal.

One of the unique features of the INCITE program is that at the LCF center where an allocation is awarded, the project will be assigned a staff member to provide scientific support. This individual will have a background in the project's domain or in a related scientific field. They bring to the project extensive experience using the LCF computational resources.

Trends

Last year's call for proposals resulted in 56 projects (25 new, 31 renewals) awarded 5.8 billion core-hours for CY 2016. The acceptance rate for new proposals was 22 percent. Representative awards include the following:
Map of the speeds of waves generated after earthquakes. This process, known as seismic tomography, provides the Jordan research team at Princeton University with unprecedented temperature and composition (type of rock) estimates for the Earth�s interior.

Combustion (351 million core-hours) "Evaluation of a 1000 MW Commercial Ultra Super-Critical Coal Boiler"
Astrophysics (47 million core-hours) "Magnetohydrodynamic Models of Accretion Including Radiation Transport"
Physical Chemistry (40 million core-hours) "Next-Generation Nanostructured Polymer Electrolytes by Molecular Design"
Materials Science (180 million core-hours) "Petascale Simulations of Self-Healing Nanomaterials"
Biophysics (100 million core-hours) "Characterizing Large-Scale Structural Transitions in Membrane Transporters"

The complete list of awards is available.

Selection

Awards are made based on the quality and impact of the research and the suitability of the proposed simulations for the requested resource. INCITE employs a two-phase review process. Proposals are peer-reviewed by an international panel of experts for scientific and technical merit and potential impact. This assessment is the primary basis for identifying the top-ranked proposals for potential awards. The computational readiness of the proposal is also assessed to determine how effectively the project will use the requested system. Multiyear awards are subject to annual review.

Hemagglutinin (orange) is an influenza surface protein responsible for viral invasion and infection of cells. Researchers in the Baker lab at the University of Washington have computationally designed a novel protein (blue) that binds to the base of hemagglutinin and effectively neutralizes the flu virus. Image credit: Vikram K. Mulligan, University of Washington

The INCITE Awards Committee, composed of the INCITE manager and LCF management teams, will make selections based on the rankings by the peer-review panel. Potential impact is the predominant determinant for awards. The readiness ratings are used to determine the capability of the project to effectively use the selected system and are based on proficiency shown through benchmarking data and/or proposed development plans. Proposals are selected that answer a high-impact, key scientific/technical question and/or point to a new area of research. Successful proposal teams demonstrate a very clear understanding of petascale computing and can optimally use these resources to accomplish the stated scientific/technical goals.

Preparing a proposal

INCITE and the LCF centers offer webinars to advise potential authors on best practices for INCITE proposal writing. Authors are encouraged to attend the webinars and to apply for LCF center Director's Discretionary (DD) time: DD requests can be submitted any time and used to obtain benchmarking data in preparation for the INCITE call for proposals. Also, the list of questions used by reviewers to assess INCITE proposals is available and can be used to guide the development of an INCITE application. For more details about these aids to proposal writing, see the INCITE Instructions.

Request for information

Authors are encouraged to respond to the INCITE Request for Information in early spring, even if considering applying to INCITE. This web-based survey is optional but provides the INCITE manager with input about potential applicants. Respondents can also receive additional information about the INCITE program and its resources.

User agreements

Use of HPC resources under the INCITE program is conditional upon acceptance of the relevant user agreement provided by the center at which an allocation is awarded. Upon receipt of an INCITE award, each participating institution on the awarded proposal must accept or already have signed the user agreement; otherwise, access by their researcher(s) to the LCF system will be delayed until the agreement is signed. The ANL user agreements and ORNL user agreements are accessible online. The proposer may contact the INCITE manager at INCITE@doeleadershipcomputing.org, for further details. The proposer's and any participating institution's authorized agents (typically contracts specialists or legal representatives who have the authority to sign the user agreement on behalf of the institution) should be prepared to review and sign the agreement once an award of time is granted. Inability of the proposer's institution to sign the agreement in a timely fashion may put the award at risk.

Proprietary use

Proprietary use (e.g., using the resources to generate data or results that they wish to designate as proprietary) of the HPC resources is allowed and will include full cost recovery through a proprietary user agreement. The use of proprietary or export-controlled software applications or input data does not by itself constitute proprietary use of the facility. A single and standardized peer-review selection process and project reporting requirement, as described within the INCITE Overview and Policies, will be implemented for both proprietary and nonproprietary user proposals. Given the complexities associated with proprietary research, individuals considering submittal of a proposal for proprietary research must contact the INCITE manager at INCITE@doeleadershipcomputing.org before the call for proposals closes to discuss the policy on proprietary work. Note: Proprietary information may NOT be included in the proposal submitted via the INCITE proposal website.

The OLCF paired developers and expert mentors to uncover new layers of code parallelism for teams participating in the center�s first Hackathon.

Acknowledgements and reporting requirements

All recipients of resources allocated through the INCITE program are expected to acknowledge the center and the program in publications resulting from their award. Refer to the Frequently Asked Question "What are my responsibilities if I receive an award?" for the standard acknowledgements and other reporting requirements. The principal investigator of each awarded project will be expected to provide periodic reports (e.g., quarterly, end of year) and respond to an annual survey.

Security

The LCF centers have implemented cybersecurity programs at a moderate baseline with compensatory controls in accordance with National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-53. Project-specific security requirements can also be discussed and potentially addressed; the proposer should contact the center directly for details. Risk is currently mitigated using available enterprise infrastructure and network-based tools to provide perimeter protection and vulnerability resolution. System- and application-level security controls are implemented in accordance with industry and federal best practices. All nontemporary user data reside on centralized file and archival storage systems that are regularly backed up. These data are protected and segmented from other users through standard access controls.

Data sensitivity and protection

The LCF centers cannot guarantee zero risks to information stored on their systems. Requests for processing sensitive (e.g., proprietary or export-controlled) data must therefore be clearly identified in the proposal. Information-sensitivity concerns apply to the intent of the research, storing and compiling of source code, loading and execution of application software, input data for the application software, output data generated by the application software, and data resulting from analysis of output data. If, for example, the application software has an Export Control Classification Number (ECCN), prospective users should state this fact in the proposal and provide the ECCN. Prospective users should work with the center to identify appropriate levels of data protection. Greater levels of protection not typically offered may be provided at a cost borne by the project.

Deadlines

Applications will be accepted only electronically starting Wednesday, April 13, 2016, and in accordance with these instructions. INCITE reserves the right to decline consideration of proposals not compliant with these instructions. New proposals will be accepted until a call deadline of 9:00 pm EDT on Friday, June 24, 2016. Awards are expected to be announced in November 2016. Access to a computing system, granted over the 2017 calendar year, will be established upon completion of the appropriate agreements and in accordance with center-specific procedures. Please direct questions about the application procedure to the INCITE manager at INCITE@doeleadershipcomputing.org.

Allocation pools available for this call:

If you have a multi-year award that has not reached its final year, you must submit a renewal request to continue the project.