Building a Scientific Software Accreditation Framework

Software underpins much of the scientific research undertaken today. As well as the “traditional” use of software for modelling and simulation, it is used to manage and control instruments, and analyse and visualise data. A challenge for users, funders, and developers of scientific software is how to determine how “good” a piece of software is. This has implications for the software’s usability and reusability, as well as its impact and return on investment.

An incredible amount of investment of effort and money is put into scientific software. In the UK, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) estimated that it had invested approximately £9m per annum on scientific software [1]. Studies done by the Software Sustainability Institute suggest that a total of £840m was invested in RCUK research grants that rely on software to undertake the proposed research. It is clear that something is required to make it easier to understand which software should be promoted, which software reused, and which software retired.

This lightning talk introduces two related initiatives: a software accreditation framework, and software management plans.