Recently, Michelle Barker and Joris van Eijnatten spoke to Peter Schmidt on the latest episode of the Code for Thought podcast on funding sustainable research software. Michelle is the Director of the Research Software Alliance (ReSA) and head of the Secretariat of the Amsterdam Declaration on Funding Research Software Sustainability (ADORE.software). Joris is General Director of the Netherlands eScience Center and a member of the declaration draft team.

In this episode, Michelle and Joris discussed a variety of topics related to funding research software sustainability, from increasing the visibility and recognition of software and the people who develop it, to the next steps of ADORE.software.

Michelle explained that people have been developing research software for many decades. In many countries and institutions, however, the recognition and visibility of research software and the people who build it have become important issues. It’s these challenges that the research software community, and organizations like ReSA and the eScience Center, are trying to meet.

Joris emphasized that the success of ADORE.software, which aims to be ready by the end of 2023, will largely depend on funding organisations adopting some or all of the principles and recommendations in the declaration. One challenge is to change the general approach to research software: sustaining software on the longer term saves time and resources, and is a significant aspect of open science.

Code for Thought is hosted by Peter Schmidt, a podcaster at University College London. His podcast is a “community podcast aimed at promoting and helping the growing community of research software engineers.”