The Software Sustainability Institute started a petition at Change.org to raise awareness for the critical role that software plays in enabling world-class research.
“We must accept that software is fundamental to research, or we will lose our ability to make groundbreaking discoveries,” reads the opening paragraph.
“We have become accustomed to technological advances that would have been unthinkable only a few decades ago. Every new discovery, from gene sequencing to the internet, advances our understanding of the universe and, ultimately, promises a better life for everyone.
“Perhaps because software is intangible, we have also become accustomed to focussing on only the hardware that makes research possible. But with very few exceptions, every significant advance in research over the last thirty years would have been impossible without software.”
The Software Sustainability Institute is a not-for-profit organization that has been working since 2010 to change the way researchers deal with software. Based at the Universities of Edinburgh, Manchester, Oxford and Southampton, the Institute works with researchers, developers, funders and infrastructure providers to identify key issues and best practice in scientific software.
The text of the petition – accessible here – is as follows:
1. We want software to be treated as a valuable research object which befits the same level of investment and effort as any other aspect of the research infrastructure.
2. We want researchers to be encouraged to spend time learning about software, because the value of that knowledge is understood to improve research.
3. We want the people who develop research software to be recognised and rewarded for their invaluable contribution to research.
4. We want a research environment in which software-reliant projects are encouraged to hire software developers, rather than having to hide these valuable staff members in anonymous postdoctoral positions.
5. Ultimately, we want the research community to recognise software’s fundamental role in research.
Posted five days ago, the petition has already received more than 1,000 signatures. The Institute has set a target goal of 25,000 signatures, which it says will offer “irrefutable proof of the need to change our thinking about research software.”