Transversal Centres of Excellence

The main goal of this opportunity is to create Transversal Centres of Excellence that act as technical hubs for high-performance computing (HPC) application developers. These centres will provide expertise, tools, and support to advance HPC software development, optimize performance, and encourage the use of best practices and new technologies. Focus areas include application profiling, performance optimization, integration of data and AI, energy efficiency, security, and interoperability across the computing continuum. The initiative aims to foster collaboration across the European HPC ecosystem. The geographic scope covers legal entities from eligible countries in Europe and select non-EU countries with specific provisions.

• Must address a specific and coherent transversal technical area supporting HPC application development.
• Should pool European expertise and resources to provide technical assistance and services for HPC application developers.
• Should focus on cross-cutting domains such as application profiling, performance optimization, deployment, portability, co-design, automated testing, data processing, resilience, security, energy-efficient computing, and system scalability.
• Must adhere to a maximum proposal length of 70 pages.
• Should allocate resources for collaboration activities.

Example Projects:

• Establishing a centre focused on optimizing energy efficiency and resilience in HPC software for climate modeling applications.
• Creating a technical hub that supports automated testing and deployment for AI and data-driven HPC applications across multiple industries.
• Developing a service centre that assists HPC developers with performance profiling and portability for scientific research applications.

• Personnel costs for staff working on the project
• Costs for collaboration activities (minimum 12 person months for post-evaluation tasks)
• Costs related to technical assistance and support services
• Expenses for developing and maintaining software tools
• Costs for performance profiling and optimization activities
• Expenses for co-design and collaboration with HPC vendors
• Costs related to automated testing and deployment
• Data processing and integration expenses
• Costs for activities focused on energy efficiency, resilience, and security
• Travel and meeting expenses for collaborative work

Funding covers up to 50% of eligible costs. All expenses must directly support the project’s objectives and comply with Horizon Europe guidelines.

• Budget for this Call: 60,000,000€
• Number of Grants attributed: 4
• Maximum value per project: 2,500,000€
• Minimum value per project: 1,000,000€
• Co-financing rate: 50%

• Applicants must be legal entities established in eligible countries as defined by the Horizon Europe program.
• Entities from certain non-EU and non-Associated Countries may participate if their countries have made specific funding provisions.
• Proposals must comply with the admissibility conditions, including a maximum of 70 pages.
• Applicants should have relevant expertise and capacity in high-performance computing or related technical areas.
• Collaboration and pooling of resources across European partners is expected.
• Projects must allocate resources for collaborative activities post-evaluation.
• Only proposals meeting all eligibility and admissibility requirements will be considered.