Grand Challenge Calls

The call is aimed at scientific research that requires computational resources exceeding CSC's standard project resources. Grand Challenge projects have a possibility to ask for higher priority. Since also partial grants can come into question, please indicate what would be the minimum requested resources and in that case, what part of the project could be left out. The maximum amount of resources awarded is for Mahti 50 million billing units (~50 million core-h) or for LUMI 1.0 GPUh and 12 million core-h per project.

The computational resources allocated to Grand challenge projects have to be consumed within a year. Access to other resources may be used depending on the needs. The proposals will go through a technical and a scientific evaluation. The scientific evaluation will be done by CSC's Scientific Customer Panel. CSC will assign a project coordinator to each project.

The proposal link will be separate for each call (a webropol link).

Grand Challenge projects involve cutting-edge research that requires considerable quotas for high-performance computation or data resources, or an extremely high level of service. CSC establishes a support team for all GC projects.

There is a special application process for obtaining Grand Challenge rights.

Evaluation criteria

Grand Challenge applications are assessed on the basis of the following criteria:

  • The scientific significance of the research
  • The impact of the research (scientific, technical, economic, cultural, social)
  • How important are the sought resources for the project?
  • How suitable are CSC's existing resources for the project?
  • The applicant's ability to implement the project

The general principle is to favour cutting-edge research.

Extra credit will be given to programmes that develop research environments and would

  • coordinate otherwise decentralised research resources; promote multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary science; and provide opportunities for cross-disciplinary activities
  • enhance cooperation between researchers, funding channels, and the end users of research results
  • increase Finland's global visibility in joint research
  • promote openness in the publication of research results

Get in touch for more information

CSC Servicedesk servicedesk@csc.fi