Kyle Niemeyer and Nic Weber
July 2, 2025
The US Research Software Sustainability Institute (URSSI) invites new applications for an Early-Career Fellowship program.
This fellowship offers funding support between $10,000 and $25,000 for research in one of the following areas: AI/ML Integration in Scientific Software Development, Scientific Software Sustainability, or Software Education Research.
The fellowship is open to PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, research software engineers, and research scientists who are less than three years removed from their final degree or appointment.
Applications are due by 25 July 10 August 2025 at 11:59 PM PST.
Please see below for additional details on how to apply.
Since 2018 URSSI has been doing research, developing policy, and providing educational opportunities to improve the sustainability of scientific software in the US. Many of our efforts are purposefully focused on early-career researchers—we believe that lasting change can and should be driven by those with the most to gain. We also know (personally) that many of the exciting innovations in scientific software come from PhD students, postdocs, research software engineers, and research scientists.
With generous funding from the Sloan Foundation, we are excited to continue a fellowship program for early-career researchers. Our goal is to identify and fund research projects focused on improving current disciplinary or domain practices in developing science software. In particular, we are interested in projects that address the growing use of AI in scientific software development, emerging best practices (or problems) in sustaining scientific software, and education research that might help URSSI improve the design and delivery of software training (see more below for details).
We welcome applications from US-based early-career researchers including: PhD Students; Postdoctoral Researchers (<3 years from PhD); Research Software Engineers (0-3 years experience after terminal degree); and Research Scientists (0-3 years experience after terminal degree).
URSSI is committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive scientific software community. We strongly encourage applications from individuals of all backgrounds and institutions.
We can offer financial support ranging from $10,000 to $25,000 depending on the scope of the project. Fellows will also have access to URSSI’s extensive network and resources including mentorship from senior researchers, professional development opportunities, and the opportunity to collaboration with a cohort of peer fellows.
Selected fellows will be expected to:
We expect this cohort of URSSI Fellows will start on 15 August 2025 and end 30 January 2026, with a midpoint progress evaluation on 15 November.
For the Summer 2025 cohort of fellows we are specifically looking for projects in one of the three following areas:
AI/ML & Scientific Software: We are interested in supporting research or evidence-based best practices for integrating AI/ML tools in scientific software development. We welcome projects that investigate basic research questions (e.g., detecting the prevalence of AI code in science) as well as applied projects that may have the goal of informing policy or practices within a specific research domain. We are particularly interested in the integration of AI for validation, reliability, and reproducibility checks.
Scientific Software Sustainability: We would like to support researchers developing scientific software (biology, earth sciences, social sciences, physics, etc.) to extend or improve practices within that domain. Example projects could include: Developing domain-specific software sustainability audits (e.g., identifying critical dependencies); creating assessment tools for research software reliability; or implementing methods for automated documentation generation (e.g., LLM assisted).
Software Education Research: URSSI runs a semi-annual school (2–3 days of co-located classroom work) to train researchers to use best practices in research software development. We would like to collaborate with education researchers to design an evaluation of these schools. This would include working closely with URSSI Winter/Spring/Fall/Summer School instructors. Projects may focus on:
To submit an application please provide the following information, your CV, and a brief project proposal (no more than three pages) at the following link: urssi.us/summer-2025-fellowship-application
Budget proposal ($10,000–$25,000) with justification for expenses. Your budget must include a $10,000 stipend for the fellow or fellows. The budget may not include hiring or paying students, support staff, or collaborators. We will likely not fund the purchase of equipment, or travel in excess of $5000.
Contact information for two professional references.
If applicable, a letter from your supervisor indicating approval/support of the proposed effort.
Applications will be evaluated based on: Intellectual & Technical Merit (30%); Potential Impact (40%); and Feasibility (30%).
Incomplete applications will not be reviewed.
What can the budget be spent on? Generally we are open to whatever is required to successfully complete a fellowship project. Below are the guidelines we intend to follow in all but exceptional cases:
Does the fellowship funding come directly to the recipient or go through an institution (potentially with overhead)? The fellowship will come directly to the recipient, and not go through an institution. Expense reimbursements or purchases will go through URSSI’s fiscal sponsor, Code for Science & Society, and salary/stipend payments will come directly from them to you as an independent contractor. (Note that there are tax implications for this, which you would be responsible for handling.)
What is the expected time commitment? We anticipate competitive projects will be completed in a six-month time period—the level of effort and the time commitment will vary between projects. If you intend to propose a project that will take longer than six months to complete please be in touch before your submission.
How many fellowships are available?
Our first fellows cohort started in Winter 2025.
We anticipate offering two additional calls for proposals (Summer 2025; and Autumn 2025).
We anticipate each cohort will consist of 3-4 projects / fellows.
If I am not selected can I submit to a future fellowship? Yes! But, please note that we have limited capacity to provide feedback on previous proposals. If you have specific questions please reach out, and provide a copy of your original proposal.
Can I submit multiple applications? No, we will not consider more than one application per candidate per cycle.
Will you support collaborative applications? Yes, with a few stipulations:
Do I have to live in the USA to be eligible for this fellowship? Yes.