Business Models and Sustainability for Materials Modelling Software

Successful software for materials modelling has an expected lifetime of many decades. This long-term nature requires a sound legal and business foundation: the ownership of software must be clearly established and the license models need to be carefully thought through to ensure a sustainable development and maintenance of the software and impactful exploitation by both academic and industrial end-users. Different business models carefully need to be considered when developing a strategy for long term sustainability of software and sustainment of the operation.
As background, the White Paper provides an overview of materials modelling software market, considering different segmentations  and briefly discusses market dynamics. 
Furthermore, the fundamental aspects of software sustainability and sustainment are described. Business models are discussed, with a detailed analysis of different revenue models. Emerging business models including digital marketplaces are considered.
The status of materials modelling software is presented with respect to different sustainment attributes (Users and Communities, Product Management, Software development and maintenance, Revenue Generation). The findings are based on a workshop and surveys carried out by the EMMC during 2018. Finally, the thoughts and recommendations shared by Software Owners (SWOs) during the evidence gathering are summarised.