Allocation process for HBP/EBRAINS and the neuroscience community

25% of the resources of the ICEI project are reserved for the HBP and the neuroscience community and available free of charge for the researchers.

The HBP organises the allocation process following established, excellence-based procedures for the neuroscience community (as established by PRACE).

Allocation process of ICEI resources for the HBP and the neuroscience community (summary):

1. Proposal submission through an online system by the applicant: https://jards-ebrains.fz-juelich.de/
   • User Guides are available in this Collab.
   • The ICEI Project Management Office (PMO) is available in case of any questions or issues: icei-coord@fz-juelich.de
2. Review process
   • Technical assessment by experts of all ICEI sites, at which resources are requested.
   • Scientific assessments by experts from inside and outside of the HBP.
3. Decision
   • Decision proposal by the EBRAINS Infrastructure Allocation Committee (IAC), based on the technical and scientific assessments
   • Final decision by HBP Directorate.
4. Project creation
   • ICEI site(s) setup the projects and inform the applicants on how to get started.

Please note that the ICEI partners are not involved the decision making, except for the ICEI Project Management Office coordinating the process.

Please take into consideration that, in order to provide the best possible support, the first quarter of your allocation period will be monitored by the hosting sites and ICEI-Project Management Office (PMO). Projects using less than 30% of their quarterly allocation (so-called “low usage” projects) during the first quarter of the allocation period may be invited to a mandatory meeting with the hosting site(s). Such meetings will serve as a place to discuss any technical difficulties encountered by low usage projects. Projects using between 30% and 80% of their quarterly allocation may also be invited to a meeting with the hosting site(s), but attendance will be not mandatory. In case no feedback is received regarding the under-usage of resources or if the PI of a low usage project does not join the mandatory meeting, a reduction of the allocated resources for that project will be considered by the IAC.

Fast-track

A fast-track allocation process is available: without scientific assessments and with decisions directly made by the IAC, if the following conditions apply:

• The requested amount of resources does not exceed 5% of the total available resources of any requested resource type during the project duration
• The number of submitted small proposals or granted and still active proposals, which have been submitted by the same team, is at most 4.

The amount of 5% of the total available resources refers to the resources available through the specific call. Example:

• Piz Daint Hybrid has 400 nodes available, 25% of them (i.e. 100 nodes) are available via the HBP-ICEI call.
• Based on the specific number of node hours per quarter and node, there are 186,150 node*hours per quarter available on Piz Daint; the threshold of 5% of 186,150 is thus 9,307.
• Thus, fast-track for Piz Daint Hybrid is available if the project requests not more than 9,307 node*hours per quarter.

Here the values of the 5% thresholds for the different resources at the specific site (all values are expressed per trimester):

The ICEI Project Management Office can be contacted to receive the values of the current thresholds.

How long does it take to get resources?

How long it takes from proposal submission until the project is granted and created, depends on multiple factors:

• Technical experts are asked to complete their assessments within 5 working days.
• Scientific experts are asked to complete their assessments within 15 working days.
• The Infrastructure Allocation Committee meets about once per month.
• The HBP Directorate meets about once per month.

The ICEI Project Management Office updates the applicants about the status of their application whenever there is new information to share. They might contact the applicants with additional questions raised by the technical or scientific experts during the process. Replying to these emails soon is important to ensure a smooth and fast processing of the proposal.

Proposals for projects, which involve the processing of personal data, need longer to be processed, as additional paperwork is required for legal reasons.

Where to find more information about the allocation process

ICEI Deliverable D5.1: https://fenix-ri.eu/about-fenix/deliverables