Undertake a collaborative policy project with research funders to revise funding policies to encourage reuse and contributions to public software infrastructure

[dr-eric-jensen]

Potential Activity Scope
Undertaking a collaborative policy project with research funders to revise funding policies is a significant initiative aimed at fostering a more supportive and sustainable environment for public software infrastructure:

The project begins by recognizing the critical role that public software infrastructure plays in modern research. Whether it is data analysis, simulation, or collaboration tools, public software enables researchers to work more efficiently and innovatively. However, the current funding landscape may not adequately encourage or support the reuse and contributions to this vital infrastructure.

The project emphasizes collaboration between relevant stakeholders, including research funders, academic institutions, software developers, researchers, and policymakers. By bringing together diverse perspectives and expertise, the project can create more informed, relevant, and effective policy revisions.

A key step in the project would be to analyze existing funding policies, identifying areas where they may fall short in encouraging the reuse and contributions to public software infrastructure. This involves a detailed review of funding calls, reviewer guidelines, grant officer practices, and other related aspects.

Based on the analysis, the project would seek to develop new guidelines and criteria that explicitly promote and reward the reuse and contributions to public software infrastructure. This may include incentives, recognition, training, and support for researchers who engage in these practices.

Throughout the project, there's a strong emphasis on engaging with the broader research and software community. This ensures that the policy revisions are not only theoretically sound but also practically applicable and responsive to the real needs and dynamics of the field.

Once the revisions are developed, the project involves working closely with research funders to implement them into their funding calls, review processes, and grant management practices. This requires careful planning, communication, and support to ensure a smooth and successful transition.

After implementation, the project should ideally include ongoing monitoring and evaluation to assess the impact of the policy revisions. This involves tracking metrics such as the number of reuses, contributions, collaborations, and innovations related to public software infrastructure, as well as gathering feedback and insights from the community.

Recognizing that both technology and research practices continually evolve, the project should emphasize continuous improvement. The policy revisions would not be static but rather they need to be designed to adapt and grow with the changing landscape of research and public software infrastructure.

Potential Objectives

• To expand recognition of the essential role of public software infrastructure in modern research and identify areas where current funding policies may lack support for reuse and contributions.
• To foster collaboration among stakeholders, including research funders, academic institutions, software developers, researchers, and policymakers, to create informed and effective research funding policy revisions to bolster the support for public software infrastructure in funded research.
• To collaboratively analyze existing funding policies, focusing on funding calls, reviewer guidelines, grant officer practices, and other aspects that may not encourage the reuse and contributions to public software infrastructure.
• To develop new research funding guidelines and criteria that promote and reward the reuse and contributions to public software infrastructure, including incentives, recognition, training, and support.
• To engage with the broader research and software community to ensure that proposed research funding policy revisions are theoretically sound and practically applicable.
• To work closely with research funders to implement the policy revisions into their funding calls, review processes, and grant management practices.
• To monitor and evaluate the impact of the research funding policy revisions, tracking metrics related to public software infrastructure and gathering feedback from the community.
• To emphasize continuous improvement, ensuring that research funding policy revisions adapt and grow with the changing landscape of research and public software infrastructure.

Targeted Impacts

• To significantly increase support of public software infrastructure within research funding policies and practices.
• To ensure funding policies are empowering researchers and software developers to recognize, articulate, and leverage their reuse and contributions to public software infrastructure as valuable scientific contributions.
• To influence funding policies, standards, and practices within research institutions and funding agencies in favor of public software infrastructure reuse and contributions, fostering a more inclusive and holistic approach to research funding.
• To enhance collaboration, networking, and innovation within the scientific community, by promoting diverse ways of reusing and contributing to public software infrastructure, bridging disciplines, domains, and perspectives.
• By achieving these objectives and realizing these impacts, the collaborative research funding policy project can play a role in redefining and enriching the relationship between research funding and public software infrastructure. It can boost the unique potential of public software infrastructure through the targeted research funding policy changes.
• By encouraging reuse and contributions, this collaborative policy project not only enhances the efficiency, creativity, and impact of research but also fosters a more collaborative, transparent, and sustainable research ecosystem.

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This potential activity was curated as part of "Charting the Course: Policy and Planning for Sustainable Research Software," a Sloan Foundation-funded project within URSSI dedicated to supporting the future of research software through evidence-informed policy work (Project contacts are: @danielskatz and @dr-eric-jensen). If you are interested in working on this, please add a comment.