PRACE Scientific Steering Committee

PRACE Scientific Steering Committee
Name	PRACE Scientific Steering Committee
Formation	2008
Type	Advisory committee
Purpose	High-performance computing strategy and scientific guidance for PRACE
Headquarters	Brussels
Region served	Europe
Parent organization	Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe

PRACE Scientific Steering Committee

The PRACE Scientific Steering Committee provides high-level scientific guidance to the Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe and advises on allocation of supercomputing resources, research priorities, and collaborations with major research infrastructures. It interfaces with European Commission bodies, national research councils, pan-European initiatives, and leading scientific institutions to align computational science investments with scientific challenges across disciplines. The committee brings together experts with backgrounds linked to institutions such as CERN, EMBL, Max Planck Society, CNRS, INFN, and ETH Zurich to shape PRACE strategy.

Overview

The committee functions as the principal advisory board linking PRACE to research communities including representatives from University of Cambridge, ETH Zurich, Imperial College London, Université PSL, Karolinska Institutet, and TU Delft. Members draw on experience from programs and infrastructures such as Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe, European Research Council, European Strategy Forum on Research Infrastructures, and collaborations involving Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Science and Technology Facilities Council, ANR, CINECA, and BSC. Liaison roles include contact with projects funded under frameworks related to Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions, European Institute of Innovation and Technology, EuroHPC JU, and consortia like GÉANT, ELIXIR, PRACE RI partners, and national supercomputing centers.

History and Formation

The committee was established during PRACE’s early organizational phase following agreements among founding partners such as PRACE aisbl founding members, national ministries, and leading research centers after the 2008 formation of PRACE as a European research infrastructure. Its creation aligns with milestones involving the European Commission’s strategies, the adoption of policies contemporaneous with the Lisbon Strategy and subsequent research agendas influenced by stakeholders including European Science Foundation, EARTO, and national academies like the Royal Society and Académie des sciences. Early membership reflected scientists with ties to projects like Human Brain Project, Graphene Flagship, ITER, SKA, ELENA, and large-scale codes developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Structure and Membership

The committee typically comprises senior scientists, domain experts, and representatives nominated by PRACE members and observer organizations, drawn from institutions such as Oxford University, Sorbonne University, Politecnico di Milano, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, RWTH Aachen University, Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Sissa, and Barcelona Supercomputing Center. Membership has included research leaders associated with awards and bodies like the Nobel Prize, Fields Medal, Wolf Prize, Breakthrough Prize, European Research Council grants, Marie Curie Fellows, and fellows of academies such as the Academia Europaea. Administrative reporting channels align the committee with PRACE’s board, the PRACE Executive Director, and technical bodies like the PRACE Technical Committee and national contact points including DECI and ICEI participants.

Roles and Responsibilities

The committee’s responsibilities encompass setting scientific priorities, evaluating calls for computing time, advising on peer review mechanisms, and recommending liaison with projects such as EuroHPC, HPC-Europa3, NeIC, PRACE-4IP, FET Flagships, and infrastructures like ESFRI roadmap projects. It issues guidance on resource allocation policies affecting workflows from computational chemistry groups at Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids to climate consortia linked with ECMWF and Copernicus. The committee also informs benchmarking, code optimization, and co-design efforts in partnership with centers like CINECA, CSCS, Jülich Supercomputing Centre, ARCHER, and research programs at Argonne National Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Scientific Priorities and Strategy

Scientific priorities recommended by the committee reflect grand challenges pursued by communities in areas exemplified by Climate Change, Astrophysics, Computational Chemistry, Materials Science, Biophysics, and Data-Intensive Science through interactions with projects such as IPCC, Gaia, LOFAR, ALMA, LHC, HPC-enabled Drug Discovery consortia, and initiatives like European Open Science Cloud. Strategy documents align with objectives similar to those articulated by European Commission programs, emphasizing reproducibility, software sustainability, training tied to PRACE Training Centres, and open science in collaboration with Zenodo and repository efforts at DataCite.

Meetings and Decision-Making

The committee convenes regular plenary meetings, thematic workshops, and ad hoc panels with participants from organizations including European Commission services, national research councils, supercomputing centers, and representatives from initiatives such as EUDAT, RDA, GÉANT, and regional research networks. Decisions are reached through consensus-building processes that integrate peer review reports, technical assessments from centers like JSC, BSC, CINECA, and policy inputs from bodies such as Council of the European Union research working groups. Minutes and recommendations are transmitted to the PRACE Board and operational units for implementation.

Impact and Contributions

The committee has shaped allocations that enabled research milestones associated with groups producing influential results connected to IPCC assessments, Human Genome Project–linked analyses, climate modeling efforts at Met Office Hadley Centre, fusion simulations contributing to ITER, and astrophysics investigations using resources analogous to those at European Southern Observatory. It has influenced software ecosystems and community codes originating from institutions like CEA, NERSC, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and fostered training and capacity building with partners including UNESCO and national academies. Through strategic guidance, the committee has helped integrate PRACE resources into European and international research infrastructures, partnerships with EuroHPC, and collaborations that support high-impact science across multiple domains.

Category:European research organisations