Looking at Software Sustainability and Productivity Challenges from NSF

TL;DR

This paper discusses the challenges faced in software sustainability and productivity within NSF-funded projects, highlighting issues like funding, career development, and interdisciplinary collaboration, based on insights from a 2015 workshop.

Contribution

It provides an overview of the NSF's role and challenges in software sustainability, offering insights and lessons learned from the SI2 program and a 2015 workshop.

Findings

Identified key challenges in software sustainability and productivity.

Highlighted the importance of funding models and career paths.

Shared lessons learned from NSF's SI2 program.

Abstract

This paper is a contribution to the Computational Science & Engineering Software Sustainability and Productivity Challenges (CSESSP Challenges) Workshop (https://www.nitrd.gov/csessp/), sponsored by the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Software Design and Productivity (SDP) Coordinating Group, held October 15th-16th 2015 in Washington DC, USA. It introduces the role of software at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the NSF Software Infrastructure for Sustained Innovation (SI2) program, then describes challenges that the SI2 program has identified, including funding models, career paths, incentives, training, interdisciplinary work, portability, and dissemination, as well as lesson that have been learned.