Research software funding policies and programs: Results from an international survey (Dataset)
Creators
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1.
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
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2.
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
Description
Research software is increasingly recognized as critical infrastructure in contemporary science. Research software spans a broad spectrum, including source code files, algorithms, scripts, computational workflows, and executables, all created for or during research. Research funders have developed programs, initiatives and policies to bolster research software’s role. However, there has been no empirical study of how research funders prioritize support for research software. This information is needed to clarify where current funder support is concentrated and where strategic gaps may exist. Here, we present data from a survey of research software funders (n=36) from around the world. The survey explored these funders’ priorities, finding a strong emphasis on developing skills, software sustainability, embedding open science, building community and collaboration, advancing research software funding, increasing software visibility and use, innovation and security.
Methods
This research was carried out using a survey combining qualitative and quantitative items. The survey was designed to investigate how research software funders support research software’s sustainability and impact.
The study was reviewed and given an exempt determination by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Institutional Review Board (no. 24374).
Survey design
The survey designed for this study began by collecting profile information, including institutional affiliation and job title. The survey gathered information about respondents’ organization’s initiatives, policies, or programs to support research software. The range of questions yielded too much data for one article. In this article, we focus exclusively on the results generated via an open-ended question asking about the top priorities for the respondents’ organizations’ support for research software: “What are your organization's top priorities related to research software?”. Four open-response text boxes were provided for respondents to indicate and list these priorities.
Sampling
This survey was aimed at international research funders, including governmental and non-governmental (e.g., philanthropic) funders. A list of contacts to invite to participate in this survey was created based on participation in the Research Software Association (ReSA) and responsibility for research software funding known to the authors. This initial list of people was refined, with removals based on individuals having moved to unrelated professional roles or being unavailable long-term, for example, due to personal issues.
The final, refined contact list comprised 71 people. After removing individuals when a member of their organization already provided a complete answer or when the person turned out to no longer be working on a relevant topic or to be otherwise unavailable (total of n=30), 41 people remained. Five of these individuals did not complete the survey, while 36 people (representing 30 research funding organizations) did, yielding a response rate of 87.8%. Fully completed survey responses were not required for individuals to be retained in the sample, resulting in varied sample bases across survey questions.
The sample includes research funders in North and South America, Europe, Oceania and Asia, but over-represents North America and European funder representatives. Some participating funders cover a broad spectrum of disciplines, while others focus on a particular domain such as social science, health, environment, physical sciences or humanities.
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Continent |
Count |
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North America |
15 |
|
South America |
4 |
|
Europe |
12 |
|
Oceania |
3 |
|
Asia |
1 |
The respondents represented research funders supported by governmental (n=26), philanthropic (n=6) and corporate (n=1) resources.
Respondents’ job titles span the following categories: Senior Leadership and Executive, such as a Vice President of Strategy; Program and Project Management, such as Senior Program Manager; Planning and Business Development; Scientific, Technical and IT, such as Scientific Information Lead.
Most respondents 72.7% (n=24) answered ‘Yes’ to the question, “Has your organization established any policies, initiatives or programs aimed at supporting research software?”, while 18.2% (n=6) said ‘No’ and 9.1% (n=3) ‘Unsure’.
Data collection, management and analysis
Data collection took place from December 2023 to May 2024. The mean completion time for the detailed survey was 28 minutes and 13 seconds.
The data were cleaned and prepared for analysis by removing any identifiable respondent details. The data analysis process followed a standard thematic qualitative analysis approach (e.g., Jensen & Laurie, 2016). This involved first identifying themes and organizing the data accordingly. Dimensions of each theme were identified where relevant. Then data extracts were selected from the survey responses associated with each theme and theme dimension.
Additional data: Evolving funding strategies for research software: Insights from an international survey of research funders
Data were uploaded in December 2024 to support another paper drawing on the same overall survey data. This one is entitled: 'Evolving funding strategies for research software: Insights from an international survey of research funders'. The survey data for this upload were generated using the following survey items.
Methods
Consent block of the survey
Thank you for your interest in this research study!
This study invites research funder representatives from around the world to share their experiences and perspectives. Our research focuses on how policies and practices can make research software more sustainable and impactful. Specifically, it examines research funders’ expectations, experiences, objectives, and plans related to efforts around software policies and sustainability.
This study is aimed at understanding the bigger picture and identifying the factors that lead to successful research funding policy. Your insights will help inform the development of better strategies to improve the longevity and effectiveness of research software. It will also allow us to identify potential roadblocks and devise ways to overcome them, thereby making the research software landscape more conducive to ongoing innovation and improvement.
We appreciate your time and valuable contributions to this study. Your participation will go a long way in shaping the future of research software policy.
Who should participate in this study?
This survey is intended for research funder representatives.
How are you being asked to help?
Online survey (~15 min.) > Online interview (~45-60 minutes) > online workshop (120-180 minutes)
If you choose to participate in this study, you will be asked to fill out a survey online about your experiences, expectations, and interactions with efforts to improve research software policies and sustainability (10-15 minutes).
Next, you may be invited to participate in a recorded online interview (approx. 45 minutes), where we will discuss in more detail your organization’s past initiatives and future plans to bolster research software’s sustainability and impact.
Finally, you may be invited to take part in a recorded online discussion workshop. During these virtual sessions, we'll share our early results and ask for your thoughts on them.
We might also invite you to participate in future stages of this project or similar research, but whether you choose to participate is entirely up to you at every stage.
Institutional Review Board:
If you have any questions about your rights as a research subject, including concerns, complaints, or to offer input, you may call the Office for the Protection of Research Subjects (OPRS) at 217-333-2670 or e-mail OPRS at irb@illinois.edu. If you would like to complete a brief survey to provide OPRS feedback about your experiences as a research participant, please follow the link here or through a link on the OPRS website: https://oprs.research.illinois.edu/. You will have the option to provide feedback or concerns anonymously or you may provide your name and contact information for follow-up purposes.
There are just a few things we would like to point out before you continue:
● Your participation in this research is fully voluntary. You can tell us that you don’t want to be in this study. You can start the study and then choose to stop the study later.
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● The data will be analyzed and used to create outputs aimed at research, industry and professional development.
At this stage, please download and read the Participant Information Sheet [link to be embedded].
Please indicate whether you understand and agree with the statements above, and are willing to participate in this survey: [Checkbox]
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This study is funded by The Sloan Foundation. The project researcher, Dr. Eric A. Jensen (ej2021@illinois.edu), and principal investigator, Daniel S. Katz (dskatz@illinois.edu), are based at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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