@article{48f34ba4c76a4933b1f992906da1d27b,
title = "A survey of the state of the practice for research software in the United States",
abstract = "Research software is a critical component of contemporary scholarship. Yet, most research software is developed and managed in ways that are at odds with its longterm sustainability. This paper presents findings from a survey of 1,149 researchers, primarily from the United States, about sustainability challenges they face in developing and using research software. Some of our key findings include a repeated need for more opportunities and time for developers of research software to receive training. These training needs cross the software lifecycle and various types of tools. We also identified the recurring need for better models of funding research software and for providing credit to those who develop the software so they can advance in their careers. The results of this survey will help inform future infrastructure and service support for software developers and users, as well as national research policy aimed at increasing the sustainability of research software.",
keywords = "Best practices, Communities, Education & training, Policy, Research software, Software sustainability, Survey",
author = "Carver, {Jeffrey C.} and Nic Weber and Karthik Ram and Sandra Gesing and Katz, {Daniel S.}",
note = "Funding Information: We provided a motivation for this research question by demonstrating, across a variety of previous surveys and published reports, there has not been sufficient funding dedicated to the development and maintenance of research software. The survey results support this assertion with just under half of the respondents who develop software as part of their research report including costs for developing software into research funding proposals, with even less including costs for reusing or maintaining research software. A limitation of our study is that we do not ask respondents why they choose not to include these costs. We could interpret this result as a belief that such items would not be appropriate for a budget or would not result in a competitive funding application. Future should investigate (1) how and why software research funding is allocated, (2) how research software is budgeted in preparing research grant proposals, and (3) what deters researchers from requesting funding for software development, maintenance, or reuse. From the perspective of software sustainability, these results are troubling. Without support for maintaining and sustaining research software, at least some of the initial investments made in software are lost over time. Funding Information: While most of previous surveys did not address the topic of career paths, the survey of research software engineers (Philippe et al., 2019) did briefly address this question. Because the results differ across the world and our paper focuses on the US, we only report results for respondents in the US. First, 57% of respondents were funded by grants and 47% by institutional support. Second, respondents had been in their current position for an average of 8.5 years. Last, 97% were employed full-time. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} Copyright 2022 Carver et al.",
year = "2022",
doi = "10.7717/peerj-cs.963",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "8",
journal = "PeerJ Computer Science",
issn = "2376-5992",
publisher = "PeerJ Inc.",
}