The CROSS Incubator: A Case Study for funding and training RSEs

TL;DR

The paper presents the CROSS Incubator as an effective university-led model for funding and training research software engineers through open source projects, demonstrating its impact on professional development and community engagement.

Contribution

It introduces a reproducible model for supporting research software engineers via university-sponsored open source incubator programs.

Findings

CROSS funding enabled software projects and community growth.

Fellowships improved professional skills of RSEs.

Model is scalable and adaptable for other institutions.

Abstract

The incubator and research projects sponsored by the Center for Research in Open Source Software (CROSS, cross.ucsc.edu) at UC Santa Cruz have been very effective at promoting the professional and technical development of research software engineers. Carlos Maltzahn founded CROSS in 2015 with a generous gift of $2,000,000 from UC Santa Cruz alumnus Dr. Sage Weil and founding memberships of Toshiba America Electronic Components, SK Hynix Memory Solutions, and Micron Technology. Over the past five years, CROSS funding has enabled PhD students to not only create research software projects but also learn how to draw in new contributors and leverage established open source software communities. This position paper will present CROSS fellowships as case studies for how university-led open source projects can create a real-world, reproducible model for effectively training, funding and supporting research software engineers.