Raising the status of software in research: A survey-based evaluation of the Software Sustainability Institute Fellowship Programme

Abstract

Background: This paper reports the results of an evaluation of the Software Sustainability Institute’s Fellowship Programme, which focused on identifying and categorising the benefits that the fellowship has afforded its recipients, via a series of open questions. Methods: The evaluation took the form of a survey open to people awarded Fellowships between 2012 and 2016, which asked people to report the effect that the programme had had on them, their institutions, their research domains and their careers. Results: The results show that the Fellowship plays a wide-ranging role in supporting communities of best practice and skills transfer, and that a significant benefit is the way it has raised the profile of software in research, and those people who develop and advocate for it. Conclusions: The evaluation of the programme has shown the need to support research software in situ and credit the engineers and researchers who are working in this important area that supports reproducibility, reuse and the integrity of research investments.