International Seed Projects

GECAT has two International Virtual Research Organizations (IVROs) established. One is the Joint Laboratory for Extreme Scale Computing (JLESC)—in collaboration with INRIA, the Jülich Supercomputing Center (JSC), Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), and the Riken Advanced Institute for Computational Science—and is focused on HPC topic areas. The second IVRO with a focus on “big data” and data analysis areas is still being established with 4-6 peer research institutions in the Pan-Pacific region.

Our GECAT budget allows for small awards to US investigators—up to $25,000 a year, initially for one year with possible extensions for additional years—to be made for collaborative seed projects (travel, salary). To propose a project, please see below for the format—which must include an active collaboration with one or more of the associated partners in the IVRO.

If you are interested, please contact Jay Roloff if you need a current list of faculty currently associated with the international partner. You are not restricted to that list of researchers—if you already know someone at a partner site, you are welcome to propose a project with them.

Example areas for these proposals include:

  • Performance evaluation and improvement for extreme scaling of systems and applications
  • System resilience/fault tolerance
  • Storage, management, and transfer of big data
  • Production of high-end visualizations
  • Performance and evaluation of interconnect network topology
  • Efficient, at-scale I/O methods
  • Storage system metadata performance, management and optimization
  • Training and support for users of extreme-scale systems
  • Distributed data management capabilities
  • Cyber-protection and authentication
  • Advanced workflow systems supporting distributed resources
  • Data sharing policies and legal issues (enabling collaborations in a constrained data-sharing environment)

Proposals will be reviewed by existing committees at each site involved. Each institution will be responsible for funding participant costs from their site—our GECAT award will be used to fund participant costs for the U.S. participants. Each participating institution must approve the project from their own perspective, and provide the resources to support the project.

Proposals

Successful proposals will:

  • Involve researchers from at least one international collaborator
  • Include sufficient resources from the collaborating international institutions in support of the collaboration
  • Involve early career researchers and post docs with a diverse background
  • Have a potential path to future funding opportunities

Proposals should be no more than five pages, consisting of:

  • Project summary (suggested length: 1/2 page)
  • Problem statement and potential impact (suggested length: 1 page)
  • Approach (suggested length: 1 page)
  • Need for international collaboration (suggested length: 1/2 page)
  • Plans for continuation of activity (e.g., submit proposals, other funding) (suggested length: 1/2 page)
  • Description of project team, location of activities and mechanisms of collaboration (suggested length: 1/2 page)
  • Milestones and/or assessment (suggested length: 1/2 page)

Proposals should also include a budget and budget justification and may include references, short—2- or 3-page NSF/DOE or NIH style—resumes for all project participants, and may include references; these materials are not included in the five-page limit.

Budgetary Guidance

Proposals can include up to $25,000 including all fringes and overheads over 12 months. Follow-on funding for previously funded proposals will be considered only in cases where additional funding is required to complete or develop a proposal for an active or imminent RFP.

Proposal funds can be used for the following purposes:

  • PI salary
  • Research assistant support (GRA, postdoc, etc.)
  • Travel support

Who’s Eligible to Apply?

All XSEDE and Blue Waters users are eligible to apply.

Submit your proposals through EasyChair.

EasyChair Submission Instructions

If you do not have an EasyChair account, see the instructions for creating an account.

Read the “Overview” information, and then click on “New Submission.”

  • Fill in all the required information indicated by (*)
  • Fill in the information on the author(s)
  • Fill in the title in plain text
  • Fill in the abstract in plain text
  • Fill in at least three keywords for searching, if desired

Upload a PDF of your proposal or click the “Abstract Only” box under “Upload Paper.” When you have completed the form, press “Submit” only once. It will take time to upload the submission.