Sustainable Research Software Hand-Over

Abstract

Scientific software projects evolve rapidly in their initial development phase, yet at the end of a funding period, the completion of a research project, thesis, or publication, further engagement in the project may slow down or cease completely. To retain the invested effort for the sciences, this software needs to be preserved or handed over to a succeeding developer or team, such as the next generation of (PhD) students. Comparable guides provide top-down recommendations for project leads. This paper intends to be a bottom-up approach for sustainable hand-over processes from a developer’s perspective. An important characteristic in this regard is the project’s size, by which this guideline is structured. Furthermore, checklists are provided, which can serve as a practical guide for implementing the proposed measures.