The consortium that hosts the MareNostrum has excessive autonomy and limited control by the State and the Generalitat
The Barcelona Supercomputing Center – National Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) is the reference center in Spain for supercomputing. Its star project is the MareNostrum, one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe, which has been renewed five times since its creation. But this center has some irregularities and internal control deficiencies that the Court of Auditors has highlighted in an audit report, collected by Europa Press.
According to the report, the BSC-CNS has significant management autonomy for its management bodies, while the control of the General Administration of the State and the Generalitat of Catalonia is limited on decisive aspects in matters of organization , planning and determination of personal and material resources. This poses a risk for the correct execution of its objectives and for the rendering of accounts to its partners.
For this reason, the report recommends that the Governing Council of the BSC-CNS, the governing body of the consortium, assume the exercise of management powers, so that the BSC maintains a functional independence from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya ( UPC), which is one of its members. In addition, the report urges the consortium to modify its statutes to include among its purposes the management of research projects, which now represents 83% of its activity.
The BSC-CNS has incompatibilities with state public sector regulations and does not comply with equality regulations
The report also points out that the BSC-CNS has incompatibilities with the regulations of the state public sector, since the UPC’s contributions are not monetary, but are made through the assignment of the use of spaces and the assignment of personnel through a legal system inspired by the regulations governing entities linked to university research. This is not compatible with the consideration of the BSC-CNS as an institutional entity of the state public sector, according to the Court of Auditors.
In addition, the report denounces that the BSC-CNS does not comply with the principle of balanced composition that inspires the equality regulations, since women only represent 26% of the workforce, compared to 74% of men. This inequality is even greater at the most responsible levels, where women range from 8% to 20%. For this reason, the report recommends the BSC-CNS to adopt measures to guarantee effective equality between men and women in access, promotion and working conditions.
The BSC-CNS has internal control deficiencies in terms of payment, contracting and cash advances
The report also detects a series of internal control deficiencies in the BSC-CNS, related to the use of certain means of payment, minor contracting, fixed cash advance systems and travel settlement systems. These deficiencies can favor the making of irregular payments, the violation of the principles of advertising, competition and transparency in contracting, and the lack of justification of travel expenses. Therefore, the report recommends the BSC-CNS to review and improve its internal control procedures to avoid these risks.
The BSC-CNS has a high degree of success in obtaining infrastructure and funding for research
Despite the irregularities and deficiencies detected, the Court of Auditors recognizes that the BSC-CNS has a high degree of success in two of its real objectives: obtaining infrastructure and technology for the most advanced supercomputers at any given time and achieving of the largest possible funding for the management of research projects. In fact, the BSC-CNS budget has grown from 4 million euros in 2005 to almost 150 million in 2022, thanks to participation in national and international research and innovation projects.
The BSC-CNS was created in 2005 as a state consortium between the General Administration of the State (60%), the Generalitat de Catalunya (30%) and the UPC (10%), with the aim of managing the MareNostrum supercomputer. In 2015, a new consortium was created with the same participation and purpose, which has been audited by the Court of Auditors. MareNostrum is one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe and has been upgraded five times, the last in 2021, with a computing capacity of 200 petaflops.
