ALCC FAQ
ALCC FAQ
- What is ALCC?
- What is new for the 2021-2022 campaign?
- What are the criteria for review of ALCC proposals?
- How is ALCC different from other ASCR allocation programs (INCITE, ERCAP, DD)?
- What computers are included in the ALCC awards?
- How much time is available in the awards?
- Does ALCC have restrictions on time requested?
- Who is eligible to apply for ALCC time?
- Does my project have to be funded by DOE to be eligible?
- If I do have DOE funding, do I need to include the grant or contract number?
- What are the DOE research priority areas?
- My project supports energy efficiency in aviation, which supports the DOE energy mission but is not in an area directly funded by DOE. Can I submit to ALCC?
- My funding come from DOE/EM, which DOE research priority area do I choose?
- My funding come from another Federal Agency, which DOE research priority area do I choose?
- My funding comes from Industry, which DOE priority area do I choose?
- My funding comes from another source (State, private foundation, etc.), which DOE research priority area do I choose?
- My project is not funded, am I eligible to apply for ALCC and can I get funding from ALCC?
- How many years can I request for allocation?
- Do I have to demonstrate scalability?
- Can I submit to ALCC a proposal based on an INCITE or ERCAP proposal?
- Can I submit a proposal to request proprietary research?
- What are the rules on export control
- What rationale can cause a proposal to be rejected without review?
- Can I see my reviews? When?
- Is a Pre-proposal required?
- What should be in the Pre-Proposal?
- Are templates available for the Pre-Proposal?
- What is the difference between the Executive Summary and Abstract?
- How do I submit a Pre-Proposal?
- What is the deadline for the Pre-Proposal?
- What should be in the Proposal?
- What is meant by “Administration Details”?
- Are templates available for the Proposal?
- How do I submit a Proposal?
- What is the deadline for the proposal?
- Can I propose a Consortium/End-Station project?
What is ALCC?
The mission of the ASCR Leadership Computing Challenge (ALCC) is to provide an allocation program for projects of interest to the Department of Energy (DOE) with an emphasis on high-risk, high-payoff simulations in areas directly related to the DOE mission, in response to National emergencies, and for broadening the community of researchers capable of using leadership computing resources. ALCC does NOT award any funding.
What is new for the 2021-2022 ALCC campaign?
- Allocation Request Cap: To ensure equitable distribution of projects, any pre-proposal or proposal that requests more than 25% of the available resources will be deemed non-responsive and will not be reviewed. For more information, please see Allocation Request Cap Information.
- Mid-year Allocation Reduction: On January 30, 2023, a percentage of unused allocation hours will be returned to the ALCC program for redistribution to other projects. For more information, please see Allocation Reduction Information.
- Pre-proposal due date: December 17th at 8pm ET
- Proposal due date: February 22nd at 8pm ET
What are the criteria for review of ALCC proposals?
How is ALCC different from other ASCR allocation programs (INCITE, ERCAP, DD)?
What computers are included in the ALCC awards?
For the 2022-2023 ALCC Allocation year:
- Summit at Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF)
- Theta at Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF)
- Polaris at Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF)
- Perlmutter at National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)
Limited access may be given to the Frontier system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, pending the pace of system acceptance and early science runs. Select, nationally important, and exascale-ready projects will be considered for this opportunity.
Awards of time are granted in millions of node-hours on the specific machines available for a given year. Projects may request up to 25% of the available hours for a given resource. For more information see Allocation Request Cap Information.
Does ALCC have restrictions on time requested?
PIs should consider the size of their request in the context of the total pool of time that is available for a particular year and the other allocation programs. Very large projects are encouraged to apply to the INCITE program. Starting in this 2021-2022 call, Proposals that request more than 25% of the available resources at any facilitywill be considered nonresponsive and may not undergo merit review, and Pre-Proposals with such large requests may be declined. Proposals to the OLCF that do not use the GPUs will also be considered nonresponsive. PIs should familiarize themselves with all the policies of the requested facilities as projects that do not meet these policies will be considered nonresponsive:
OLCF- Summit
- Summit user guide
- OLCF policy guide
ALCF – Theta
NERSC – Cori
Who is eligible to apply for ALCC time?
Funded researchers affiliated with a university, lab, agency, or industry performing research in a science area that supports the DOE mission/ research priority areas.
Does my project have to be funded by DOE to be eligible?
No, but you DO need to identify the relevant DOE Office/research priority area, and you need to provide the name and email of your program manager/project sponsor. Program priority is part of the merit review and projects that do not have input from the sponsor program will not be competitive.
If I do have DOE funding, do I need to include the grant or contract number?
No, but you DO need to tell us which DOE Office/research priority area and provide the name and email of your program manager/project sponsor. Program priority is part of the merit review and projects that do not have input from the sponsor program will not be competitive.
What are the DOE programs and research priority areas?
DOE/SC/ASCR
DOE/SC/BES
DOE/SC/BER
DOE/SC/FES
DOE/SC/HEP
DOE/SC/NP
DOE/EERE
DOE/FE
DOE/NE
DOE/NNSA
My project supports, for example, energy efficiency in aviation, which supports the DOE energy mission but is not in an area directly funded by DOE. Can I submit to ALCC? Yes, ALCC supports projects that advance the DOE mission. Projects with non-DOE funding should choose DOE/SC/ASCR/interagency partnerships; SC/ASCR/industrial competitiveness or DOE/SC/ASCR/national preparedness (this includes COVID research efforts)
My funding comes from DOE/EM. Which DOE research priority area do I choose?
EM funded projects should choose DOE/SC/ASCR/interagency partnerships
My funding comes from another Federal Agency. Which DOE research priority area do I choose?
Projects with funding from another Federal agency should choose DOE/SC/ASCR/interagency partnerships
My funding comes from Industry. Which DOE research priority area do I choose?
Industry funded projects should choose DOE/SC/ASCR/industrial competitiveness
My funding comes from another source (State, private foundation, etc.), which DOE research priority area do I choose?
Projects with funding from other sources should choose SC/ASCR/interagency partnerships
My project is not funded, am I eligible to apply for ALCC and can I get funding from ALCC?
No. ALCC does not award funding. All ALCC projects must have approved funding from another source.
How many years can I request for allocation?
ALCC is a one year allocation program. Projects must submit new applications each year. If your project is part of a multi-year effort, you should mention how this year’s request fits into your overall plans.
Do I have to demonstrate scalability?
No. However, if you have scalability info, you should include it. Also, new this year, the Pre-Proposal asks for details such as what codes you plan to use, your workflow and how you plan to use the allocation. This is to identify projects that are not well matched to the resources available. PIs should be aware of the facility policies, especially the queueing policies, the codes and tools that are supported at each facility, and the projects that have been successful in previous ALCC cycles.
Can I submit to ALCC a proposal based on an INCITE or ERCAP proposal?
Yes, but you should not resubmit an identical proposal since goals and requirements are different. ALCC proposals should focus on impact to DOE mission. Also, you should address any reviewer comments from previous versions of your proposal.
Can I submit a proposal to request proprietary research?
Projects cannot require the Proprietary User Agreement. However the Industrial Partnership User Agreement for ALCC allows industrial projects to perform some proprietary work so long as a meaningful list of research results and data are released to the public. Interested applicants should contact the designated industrial outreach contact at ASCR centers for more information and concurrence before submitting the full proposal. NOTE: the proposal itself should NOT contain proprietary info.
OLCF Website for Industry
Suzy Tichenor
Director, Industrial Partnerships,
Computing and Computational Sciences
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
(703) 413-7846
tichenorsp@ornl.gov
NERSC Website for Industry
David Skinner
Strategic Partnerships Lead
NERSC
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
(510) 486-4748
DESkinner@lbl.gov
ALCF Website for Industry
David Martin
Industrial Outreach Lead
Argonne Leadership Computing Facility
Argonne National Laboratory
(603) 252-0929
dem@alcf.anl.gov
What are the rules on export control?
Rules are subject to change and may be different from one site to another.
What rationale can cause a proposal to be rejected without review?
The following are reasons a proposal will be deemed unresponsive and may not undergo merit review: Proposals that were declined at the Pre-proposal stage; Proposals that did not submit a Pre-Proposal; Incomplete proposals (missing any of the required elements); Proposals lacking a recognized funding source; Proposals for research that is unrelated to the DOE Mission/ research priority areas; Proposals that lack a PI affiliated with a recognized entity (university, lab, agency or industry); Proposals that request the OLCF but do not intend to use the GPUs; Proposals that do not adhere to the Facility user policies; and Proposals that request more than 25% of the available resources at any facility.
Can I see my reviews? When?
After the final award decisions are made, ALL PIs will be notified of the status of their projects. Each PI will then be able to request an anonymized copy of their review comments and scores.
Is a Pre-Proposal required?
Yes. We will use the Pre-Proposals in our planning for the proposal peer reviews and to identify nonresponsive projects. The Pre-Proposal content IS subject to internal review, and IS a determining factor in allocation decisions. The Pre-Proposal will be used to screen out or reject proposals.
What should be in the Pre-Proposal?
Please see pre-proposal submission information.
Are templates available for Pre-proposal?
A template is available for the Executive Summary/Abstract section of the pre-proposal.
What should be included in the Executive Summary/Abstract?
This section (1 page maximum) is used to assess mission coverage and impact, so it should list main project goals in the context of the DOE mission and/or broadening the HPC community. Be sure to mention any dependencies with other activities (e.g., “Simulation data generated will be used in design of instrument X, scheduled to deploy in 2023”). This section is also used to assess what expertise reviewers should have in order to give an accurate assessment of the full proposal. In describing what the project will do and how it will do it, be sure to explicitly list the science domain (e.g. “biomass engineering”, “tokamak plasma turbulence”, “solar cell design”, etc.) and theoretical and computations methods (e.g., “computational fluid dynamics”, “quantum Monte Carlo”, “machine learning”, etc.) to be used.
How do I submit a Pre-Proposal?
Submission of pre-proposal is done digitally at ALCC Application Dashboard. The person performing the submission must have a PeerNet account. Only one person/email address can edit the submitted pre-proposal. The registration information from the PeerNet account used to enter the data will be imported as “Author” and that person will be the authorized contact to edit and submit both the pre-proposal and the full proposal. The Author may be the PI or another member of the team. An author can submit only one proposal. We recognize that some pre-proposal submissions may not be followed by a full proposal, but ALL proposals must have first submitted a pre-proposal.
What is the deadline for the Pre-Proposal?
The Pre-Proposal call will open November 10, 2020 and the Pre-Proposal is due by January 4, 2021 at 5:00 PM (Eastern Time). If you encounter difficulties, send an email to us before the deadline at ALCC-ASCR@science.doe.gov.
What should be in the Proposal?
Please see Proposal Submission Information.
What is meant by “Administration Details” in the proposal?
Describe the project’s leadership team and how decisions are made to allocate time to individuals or, for proposals with multiple collaborating teams, subgroups within the project. Successful proposals will include sufficient details to convey to reviewers the interrelationship between subgroups and how the sum of the parts will lead to scientific discovery or engineering solutions that are the overarching goal of the project.
Are templates available for the Proposal?
In addition to the template available for the LOI Executive Summary/Abstract, Word templates are available for several sections of the Proposal: Project Narrative, Milestone table, Publications, Team/Administration, and Bio-sketches (a subset of a CV). Please see Templates for ALCC Submissions.
How do I submit a Proposal?
Proposals should be submitted digitally at ALCC Application Dashboard.
Info from the Pre-Proposal will be automatically moved over to the draft proposal, where it may be edited (and pdfs may be retained or replaced with new uploads).
What is the deadline for the proposal?
The proposal submission deadline is Monday January 10, 2022 at 8:00 PM ET. If you encounter difficulties, send an email before the deadline to ALCC-ASCR@science.doe.gov.
Can I propose a Consortium or End-Station?
No. These proposals do not review well due to page restrictions and are no longer accepted..
