US Research Software Sustainability Institute

URSSI's mission is to improve the recognition , development, and use of software for a more sustainable research enterprise.

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URSSI Updates

Keep up to date with URSSI's new activities

Applications now open for the 2025 URSSI Winter School in Research Software Engineering

Do you develop software for your research? Do you have some basic skills but desire more?

If so, you might be interested in the upcoming URSSI Winter School in Research Software Engineering. Building off our prior winter and summer schools, we are hosting a three-day workshop on research software engineering skills over 15–17 December 2025 in Portland, OR, at Oregon State University’s Portland Center.

This is aimed at early-career researchers, particularly graduate students and postdocs, who are familiar with basic skills such as interacting with the Unix shell, version control using Git, and Python programming, and would like to learn more about best practices for developing research software.

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URSSI Fall Fellowship: Characterizing the Impact of LLM-Generated Code in Scientific Software

When AI Starts Writing Scientific Software

As a multi-purpose technology, large language models (LLMs) have rapidly been integrated across industries including academia and software development. From suggesting syntax to writing full functions, they’ve transformed the possibilities for how scientists build and maintain research software.

However, the speed and convenience of LLMs comes with trade-offs. Scientific software often lives at the frontier of discovery, where a subtle bug or misused library can distort an entire analysis1. As researchers increasingly use tools like ChatGPT or Claude to write code, we face a new question:

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Upcoming community calls and events

Stay tuned for upcoming announcements on workshops, training events, conferences and more.

Core URSSI Projects

As we get started on the institue, we have launched a series of core projects to improve the sustaniability of research software and the people who produce it.

Characterizing Research Software from NSF Awards

This EAGER project will investigate the development and maintenance of software produced in research projects funded by the National Science Foundation. The goals of this project are: 1 To understand what factors influence software sustainability by gathering data from grant-funded research projects; 2 To describe current models of sustainability planning and suggest potential new models that could increase the likelihood of achieving long-term software sustainability; and 3 To develop new …


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New School in Research Software Engineering

As part of a set of connected activities under the banner of the US Research Software Sustainability Institute, this grant funds an effort by Kyle Niemeyer, Associate Professor of mechanical engineering at Oregon State University, to develop and run four, weeklong “beyond introductory” winter/summer schools for researchers who want to deepen their software engineering skills. Beyond directly training researchers in sustainable software development, Niemeyer will develop, hone, and release a …


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Charting the Course: Policy and Planning for Sustainable Research Software

Welcome to “Charting the Course: Policy and Planning for Sustainable Research Software,” a Sloan Foundation-funded project dedicated to supporting the future of research software through evidence-informed policy work. This section will help you stay updated with our latest news, research, and community engagement activities.


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