What support does research software need? Early lessons from the Research Software Maintenance Fund

Software is pervasive in modern research, used in every discipline and underpins many approaches including modelling and simulation; data management, analysis and visualisation; and experiment and laboratory control. Yet it can be difficult, even for widely used research software, to find resources for its maintenance, refactoring and community development, because the focus of much research funding is on novelty.

The Software Sustainability Institute is running the Research Software Maintenance Fund (RSMF), supported by the UKRI Digital Research Infrastructure programme, offering £4.8 million to support and sustain key research software, ensuring it remains reliable and accessible. This initiative is not only funding vital pieces of the research ecosystem but helps us understand what support research software needs to reduce technical debt and grow engagement and how we can effectively provide it.

In this short presentation, we’ll be presenting some early analysis of the types of activities that are being requested, putting them into the context of other research software funding initiatives, providing information on how the RSMF is operated, and getting feedback on what the community thinks is important to address next.

The Research Software Maintenance Fund is supported by funding from the UKRI Digital Research Infrastructure programme through grant AH/Z000114/1. We would like to thank all the SSI team members and advisory board members who provided input into the development of the RSMF. We also acknowledge the input we have received from the CZI EOSS programme team, in particular Kate Hertweck, and the ReSA Funders Forum.