The G8 (right) HORCs initiative is unique: unlike previous multilateral collaborations, researchers no longer have to apply for funding in each participating country or from a number of different organisations. Rather, funding can be applied for jointly from a single organisation.

Instead of being evaluted separately by each country involved, funding proposals are only reviewed in a single, two-stage process.

Participating organisations coordinate the payment of funds to facilitate multilateral research projects that would otherwise be seriously encumbered or rendered impossible by administrative hurdles or differing funding mechanisms.

"We are entering uncharted territory with our initiative for multilateral research funding," commented (Left) DFG President Professor Matthias Kleiner in Bonn at the launch of the call. "Science has long understood that certain topics can best be tackled by a multinational approach. Funding such projects generally becomes more feasible if a limited number of countries are involved that have similar funding programmes.

"In the emerging European Research Area, positive experiences have been made with the 'Lead Agency Process', which the DFG practices with its partner organisations in Switzerland, Austria and Luxembourg. Outside of Europe, cooperations between German, Chinese and Russian research teams, for example, have been successful.

"But if the number of participating countries increases and the formal and administrative differences between the participating funding organisations are too great, such cooperations often meet their limits. In this regard, the G8 initiative endeavours to provide the highest possible quality standards with the least amount of bureaucracy," emphasised Professor Kleiner, who suggested the new process last year to his colleagues.

The first call for proposals is in the area of exascale computing and focuses on the computing power that is to be expected within the coming decade in what will then be the world's fastest supercomputers. Such computers will be able to perform up to a thousand times more arithmetic operations than the current fastest computers in the same amount of time.

Both the provision of this computing power and its efficient use are enormous scientific challenges that cannot be addressed sufficiently by means of the current approaches. Funding will therefore be awarded to multilateral research projects that address the research and use of exascale-suitable application software, thereby allowing the available computing power to be used for scientific and social issues.

Researchers from the participating G8 countries who are interested in applying first submit a preliminary proposal of their projects to the DFG by the start of May of this year.

From these proposals, an international review panel will select the most promising projects, which will then be invited to submit their full proposals. These will be evaluated subsequently under the leadership of the country in which the scientific coordination of the respective project lies. The other funding organisations, with which the process is individually coordinated, recognise the results of the respective review.

By February 2011, a total of eight to 10 multilateral consortia are to be funded for two to three years, with each of the participating organisations contributing approximately €500,000 a year.

Three additional calls for proposals with a specified topic are to be started by 2012. These will be conducted in the same manner and will also serve to test the joint actions of the funding organisations. In the intermediate term, the G8 HORCs will focus on joint projects without specified thematic topics.

"The best ideas always come from science itself," emphasised DFG President Kleiner. "Therefore, our multilateral initiatives should likewise be open for all topics."