Success in HGF Portfolio Process

The Helmholtz Association's portfolio process was introduced in 2010 in order to quickly tackle important research topics that are not covered by the Helmholtz programmes. JSC participated in three proposals that all passed the experts' review and are now being funded.

"Supercomputing and Modelling for the Human Brain" is one of the portfolio topics led by Forschungszentrum Jülich. In 2013, JSC, the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine INM-1 at Forschungszentrum Jülich, the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ), and the German Research Center for Environmental Health (HMGU) together with international partners and RWTH Aachen University will start to construct a realistic organ model of the human brain. This cooperation will also form the basis for the development of future computer architectures, since it will try to adapt the fundamental working mechanisms of the brain to computer hardware.

JSC's working group "Safety and Traffic" has successfully completed two third-party-funded projects in 2011. In cooperation with the Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT) and Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR, project leader), this work will be continued in the HGF portfolio project "Security Research". JSC will focus on the development of simulation models in the areas of "Fire Protection" and "Pedestrian Traffic".

The portfolio topic "Large-Scale Data Management and Analysis" addresses the increasing amount of scientific data. KIT (project leader), DESY, GSI, and JSC together with a number of universities will develop and integrate tools for data management and analysis into the scientific life cycle of selected applied sciences through the introduction of "Data Life Cycle Labs" and a distributed cross-sectional "Data Services Integration Team".

from JSC News No. 201, 23 February 2012