D2.6: Report on the DECI Call

This is a report on the DECI (Distributed Extreme Computing Initiative) calls which took place within the T2.6 task. It also includes recommendations and plans for future DECI Calls. Statistics are presented for the relevant DECI calls which give an overview of the number and type of proposals received and those funded. This report focuses on the DECI-11 and DECI-12 calls which were handled entirely within T2.6. Special mention is made of the new on-line submission system, the PRACE Peer Review (PPR) tool, developed by CINES which came into operation for DECI-11 giving rise to a big improvement to the way in which DECI proposals are handled. The efficiency of the PPR tool was of particular importance for DECI-11 as we received a record number of proposals for this call (117 of which 115 were eligible). The number of proposals received for the most recent call, DECI-12, was lower with 61 proposals received (still a large number of proposals), but this was expected as the call was not advertised as widely and the call was open for less time than usual (just under 5 weeks which included the Christmas holiday period compared with approximately 6 weeks for most DECI calls including no major holiday periods). The reason why this lower number was intended was that DECI-12 will have to run partly after the end of PRACE-3IP and so will have fewer resources available in terms of number of machines, CPU hours and staff effort. DECI continues to be popular with Principal Investigators (PIs) and the number of proposals remains high. Scientific results are not described in this document as they are highlighted in the PRACE Digest 3/2013