Please submit the complete project proposal for a compute project to the HLRN service portal.

A proposal contains four parts.

1. meta data ("Stammdaten"),
2. main proposal ("Projektbeschreibung"/initial application or "Statusbericht"/status report),
3. abstract ("Kurzbeschreibung"),  and
4. a signed letter (e-mail) 

After submission, the proposal is evaluated in a review process organized by the HLRN Scientific Board. Each reviewer obtains access to

• the project proposal,

• the history of previous projects,

• contact data of the HLRN consultant, and
• aggregated statistics for NPL usage on the HLRN systems.

Meta data ("Stammdaten")

During the course of online submission, the project proposer needs to address metadata on the HLRN service portal. This includes information about

• the principal investigator (scientist holding a PhD),
• the person in charge of submitting the proposal,
• project partners,
• other evaluations and funding for the project
• usage of other compute resources,
• project lifetime,
• software requirements (please check availability with your consultant before),
• compute time requirements, and
• storage requirements.

Main proposal ("Projektbeschreibung" or "Statusbericht")

Erstantrag für ein Großprojekt/ Initial application for a compute project

The proposal needs to upload a prepared document in PDF format, the "Projektbeschreibung".

The proposal is written in English or German. Usually about 10 pages.

This document includes the main scientific content and has to address all relevant aspects like

• Abstract 
• Project description
  • Problem description and aims of the project
  • Scientific significance, innovation, expected results, utilization of results
  • Mathematical modeling used, 
  • Technology and tools for numerical solution 

  • Preliminary studies/results of the preceding project 

  • Descriptions of research plan and work packages
• Computational facets
  • Software, libraries, licenses, target architecture (a list)
  • Necessity of parallel computing hardware
  • Concept for parallelization, scaling properties, application performance
  • Parallel efficiency, strong/weak scaling
  • Performance properties, precondition for estimations in the resource plan
  • Necessity of HLRN resource, larger than e.g. university
• Resource estimation
  • Detailed plan for compute time and NPL (see Accounting and NPL)
  • work plan 
  • Storage demands, scaling properties for I/O
• Literature
• Funding decisions
• Publication list

To avoid:

• Imprecise or incomprehensible estimation of requested computational resources (especially NPL/core-hours); for example, missing arguments to justify a certain number of N runs instead of a smaller number. One page is our recommended minimum.
• No proof, that the software to be used is suitable and efficient for parallel execution (and parallel I/O) on our specific supercomputer. Recycling a scalability demo by a third party is meaningless, without showing that your planned production run is fully comparable to it (algorithm selection within the software, I/O pattern, machine architecture, problem size per core).
• The overall aim and/or motivation behind the project is unclear.
• The applicant lacks HPC/Unix skills and an experienced co-applicant is missing.
• Insufficiency of the applicant's local resources is not indicated.

In case of questions, please contact your HLRN consultant.

In case of continuation of a running compute project ("Fortsetzungsantrag für ein Großprojekt"):

Instead of "Projektbeschreibung"/initial application, you need to submit a "Statusbericht"/status report of the current project.

The structure of the report might be similar to the initial application. "Statusbericht"/Status report should hold the following properties:

• Describe the current status of the project and the reasons for the continuation of the project.
• Since the referees have access to the initial application, it is reasonable to use references to the initial application instead of repeating descriptions
• Describe results, problems and future plans

1. • Current progress
   • Summary of the studies and results obtained in the preceding project
   • Publications from the initial application
   • New problems to be addressed in the continuation of the running project or problems not (fully) solved in the initial application and
     intended to be covered in the continuation of the running project
   • Differences from the initial application
   • Resource estimation
   • Detailed plan for compute time and NPL (see Accounting and NPL), work plan
   • Storage demands, scaling properties for I/O

To avoid:

Apart from the items mentioned for the initial application:

• The HLRN was not mentioned in relevant publications.
• Cut & paste of previous proposals.

In case of questions, please contact your HLRN consultant.

Abstract ("Kurzbeschreibung")

All present HLRN projects that have been successfully reviewed by the Scientific Board are listed on the HLRN project list. Each proposal for a compute project needs to submit a Kurzbeschreibung / project abstract in PDF format based on the HLRN abstract template.

The abstract is written in English or in German and should contain about 2 pages.

Signed letter (e-mail) 

By the end of the online submission, an email is created by the HLRN service portal. This also indicates that your application is successfully submitted. The project proposer is requested to print and sign the document and finally to send it to the Office of the Scientific Board.