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To advance the state-of-the-art programming tools in high-performance computing (HPC), Forschungszentrum Juelich has joined forces with RWTH Aachen, TU Dresden and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Together they have established the Virtual Institute High-Productivity Supercomputing (VI-HPS), a cooperation supported by the Helmholtz Association and combining the expertise of key players in the area of performance-analysis and error detection tools for high-end computing systems. The keynote speaker during today's inauguration ceremony in Juelich is Douglass Post, Chief Scientist of the US Department of Defense HPC Modernization Program. VI-HPS spokesman Felix Wolf from Forschungszentrum Juelich is excited about the synergies created through this partnership: "The integration of leading tool projects will provide a clear productivity benefit for the HPC user community." And Christian Bischof (Aachen), deputy spokesman of the collaboration, explains: "Besides enhancing the technical capabilities of the VI-HPS tool suite, a major focus will also be convincing more users that using these tools can save them time both during development and when the application goes into production." VI-HPS is a joint institute founded by Forschungszentrum Juelich, RWTH Aachen University, Technische Universitaet Dresden, and the University of Tennessee. The goal of the partnership is to improve the quality and accelerate the development process of complex simulation codes in science and engineering that are being designed for the most advanced parallel computer systems. The four institutions will develop integrated state-of-the-art programming tools for high-performance computing that assist programmers in diagnosing programming errors and optimizing the performance of their applications. The virtual institute will be inaugurated with a half-day colloquium held at Forschungszentrum Juelich today. The keynote talk with the title "The Opportunities and Challenges of Computational Science and Engineering" will be given by Douglass Post, Chief Scientist of the United States Department of Defense High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP). Virtual institutes are a well-established funding instrument of the Helmholtz Association. Helmholtz centers and universities use this instrument to concentrate research capacities and thereby create centers of excellence of international standing in key areas of research. Virtual institutes are supplemented with an annual budget of €300 K for three years. VI-HPS fits seamlessly into the long-term cooperation and the series of common initiatives between Forschungszentrum Juelich and RWTH Aachen University under the topic simulation sciences and HPC: A Helmholtz-University Young Investigators Group on Performance Analysis works in Juelich and Aachen and is part of the graduate school AICES awarded to RWTH in the German Excellence Initiative to train students in computational engineering science. The German Research School for Simulation Sciences (GRS) carried by RWTH and Forschungszentrum Juelich will provide exciting educational opportunities for gifted students through a graduate program in computational science and engineering and its embracement of high-performance computing.