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Key Takeaways

  • Seven major funding models exist for open source scientific software, ranging from multi-donor philanthropy (EOSS/OS4S, ~$58M) to government grants (NASA OSTFL, NSF PESOSE, UKRI RSMF, DFG) and EU framework programs (€93.5B Horizon Europe).
  • The “maintenance trap” is the root cause of abandoned research software: academic career systems reward publications, not code maintenance, creating structural incentives against long-term sustainability.
  • Coordination is improving but still fragmented. The Amsterdam Declaration on Funding Research Software Sustainability (ADORE.software, v1.1) and the Research Software Funders Forum are emerging mechanisms to reduce duplication and inefficiency across funders.
  • Your project likely has funding options you haven’t considered. Most researchers only know about GitHub Sponsors or crowdfunding, but government agencies and major foundations are now actively funding research software with multi-year grants up to $400K.
  • No global endowment fund exists yet. Unlike journal articles (DOI registration) or datasets (data repositories), there is no established mechanism for long-term financial sustainability of research software.

What to Know First

Open source scientific software — the libraries, frameworks, and tools that power computational materials science, climate modeling, genomics, and dozens of other research fields — is fundamentally underfunded. Not because researchers don’t want to fund it. Because the current funding system was designed around a different assumption: that software is disposable code, not foundational infrastructure.

As the field matures, this assumption is changing. Government agencies (NASA, NSF, UKRI, DFG), philanthropic foundations (CZI, Kavli, Sloan), and EU funding programs are beginning to treat research software as public infrastructure that deserves sustained investment. The question isn’t whether your software needs funding anymore — it’s which funding model fits your project, and how to access it.

This guide walks through the seven major funding models currently available to research software projects, documents the largest programs with concrete examples and application links, and explains the systemic challenges that still need solving.

Why Research Software Funding Is Broken (And Why That’s Changing)

Before we list funding options, we need to understand why the problem exists in the first place. The root cause isn’t scarcity of money. It’s a structural incentive mismatch.

The Maintenance Trap

Academic career advancement, tenure evaluations, and peer-review metrics are almost universally tied to publications — papers, citations, h-indices. Software contributions, maintenance work, and infrastructure-building are not (yet) recognized as legitimate career capital.

“Research software can be developed by one person/group and used just for their own research, or it can be intended for use by multiple groups… Most research funders recognize that they need to support and infrastructure… However, most do not routinely consider software as part of the research infrastructure that needs support for both development and maintenance.”
— Katz & Jensen, Open Research Europe (2025)

This creates what I call the maintenance trap: a researcher builds useful software, publishes a paper about it, and then moves on to the next grant cycle. The software continues to be used, but no one has institutional incentive or funding to maintain it. When the original author graduates or transitions to a new position, the software enters the “zombie project” phase — still cited in papers, but no longer receiving bug fixes, security updates, or documentation improvements.

The trap isn’t personal failure. It’s system design. Until the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment (CoARA) and ReSA’s PRO4RS working group successfully reform how software contributions are evaluated, most researchers will continue to treat sustainability as a “good to have” rather than a “must do.”

What’s Changing

The funding landscape is in active transition. Seven coordinated mechanisms now exist, and several are expanding:

Program First Award Scale Status
EOSS / OS4S 2019 ~$58M deployed (6 cycles) Transitioning to OS4S (2024)
NASA OSTFL 2023 Multiple solicitations Active, annual cycles
Sloan OSPO 2021 Up to $750K / 2yr 7 institutional grants awarded
UKRI RSMF 2024 £4.8M Round 2 expressions open (Jan 2026)
Sovereign Tech Fund 2022 €24.6M deployed Active
NSF PESOSE 2026 Up to $40M New (replaced POSE)
Horizon Europe 2021 €93.5B total Active through 2027

The field is also beginning to coordinate. The Amsterdam Declaration (ADORE.software, v1.1, 2024) has 20+ signatories and a practical toolkit. The Research Software Funders Forum (organized by ReSA) has held three workshops bringing together government and philanthropic funders. The question of “how do we stop duplicating effort across funders?” is being actively debated.

The Seven Funding Models Explained

Model 1: Multi-Donor Philanthropic Grants (EOSS / OS4S)

Who runs it: Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), Kavli Foundation, Wellcome Trust

How it works: These three foundations pool resources through a shared application portal but make independent award decisions from a coordinated funding pool. Projects submit one application; each funder evaluates independently.

Scale: ~$58M deployed across 6 cycles (2019–2025), supporting 193+ projects.

Award range: $50,000–$200,000/year, with 2-year grants totaling $100K–$400K.

Eligible activities: Salary support, community engagement, operational needs (cloud infrastructure, CI/CD), ecosystem bridging between related projects. Requires fiscal sponsorship (e.g., NumFOCUS) for independent projects.

Notable funded projects: ImageJ/Fiji, Bioconductor, samtools, GATK, Scanpy, JupyterLab, Dask, conda-forge, PyMC, Stan, scikit-learn (CZI cited it as foundational to AlphaFold development), fMRIPrep, MNE-Python.

What’s new: Cycle 6 (2024) transitioned to a three-funder model. The Open Source for Science Fund (OS4S) now continues the legacy with $250K grants via NumFOCUS. Reports show 50%+ of grantees improved DEI outcomes; 45%+ collaborated with other projects during funding.

Link: EOSS/OS4S grants

Model 2: Government Research Software Grants

NASA: OSTFL (Support for Open-Source Tools, Frameworks, and Libraries)

NASA has established an explicit open-source funding program within its Science Mission Directorate (SMD). Two award types:

  1. Foundational awards: Cooperative agreements up to 5 years
  2. Sustainment awards: Grants/cooperative agreements up to 3 years

NASA also offers a Supplement for Open-Source Science (ROSES-24 F.8) allowing existing ROSES grants to add an open-science component. The agency explicitly recognizes that “software has become a foundational component” of research.

Link: NASA ROSES-24 F.7

NSF: PESOSE (Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems)

Originally POSE, now evolving into PESOSE (Pathways to Enable Secure Open-Source Ecosystems, 2026). The program funds “managing organizations” to catalyze and sustain open-source ecosystems based on mature products. Goals include efficient transition of research tools into sustainable ecosystems, security/privacy/CI best practices, and equitable community building.

Budget: Up to $40M

Link: NSF PESOSE

UKRI / SSI: Research Software Maintenance Fund

  • Total budget: £4.8M across rounds
  • Per-project grant: Up to £150,000 for up to 12 months
  • Scope: Maintenance and sustainment of existing research software (NOT new development)
  • Round 2: Expressions of Interest open Jan 28, 2026; ~10 projects expected
  • Key detail: Explicitly welcomed humanities and social sciences research software in Round 2, suggesting historical neglect in this area

Link: UKRI RSMF

DFG (Germany): Research Software Quality Assurance

  • Call type: Interdisciplinary call for German organizations
  • Sub-goals: Usability/impact, quality assurance, further development
  • Link: DFG announcement

Model 3: Sovereign Tech Fund (Germany)

Funder: Sovereign Tech Agency / German Federal Ministry (BMWK)

Budget: €24.6M deployed since 2022

Minimum grant: €50,000

Scope: Core digital base technologies — libraries, protocols, tools, encryption. Evaluated on:

  • Prevalence: widely used by other technologies
  • Relevance: significant for societal sectors (education, health, energy, industry)
  • Vulnerability: underfunded by other actors
  • Public interest: benefits society or critical sectors

Critical constraint: “Projects are not eligible to receive financing from the SFT if other public entities are already making grants for the same proposed activities” — enforces non-overlap.

Funded projects: OpenSSH, curl, various programming language libraries and communication protocol implementations

Link: Sovereign Tech Fund

Model 4: Institutional OSPO Funding (University-Level)

Funder: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Program: Institutional Support for Open Source Software in Research

Award: Up to $750,000 over 2 years

What it funds: University-level Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs) with dedicated staff. Not individual project grants — this is institutional capacity building.

Previously funded OSPOs:

  1. Johns Hopkins University
  2. Rochester Institute of Technology
  3. University of Vermont (VERSO)
  4. UC Santa Cruz
  5. Saint Louis University
  6. UC-wide network
  7. Carnegie Mellon University

What a funded OSPO does: Training and mentoring for faculty/students, internship programs, small incentives (seed grants, fellowships), community-building and dissemination.

Purpose: “Robust documentation and clear project governance can substantially lower barriers to the contribution to and maintenance of individual projects.”

Link: Sloan Foundation OSPO LOI

Model 5: Corporate and Foundation FOSS Sustainability

FLOSS/fund

  • Scale: Up to $1M/year
  • Origin: Zerodha (2024)
  • Mechanism: Projects use a standardized funding.json manifest
  • Ecosystem partner: FOSS United Foundation
  • Recent tranches: 9 projects received $325K total (first tranche, 2025)

Link: FLOSS/fund

FOSS Contributors Fund (TODO Group)

Companies pool money; distribution based on community consensus. Coordinated through TODO Group.

Link: FOSS Funders

Model 6: EU Framework Funding

  • Horizon Europe: €93.5B (2021-2027); explicitly prioritizes digital leadership
  • Digital Europe Programme: €8.1B; funds projects in cybersecurity, HPC, digital public services
  • NGI / Open Internet Stack: Fundamentals of Software Engineering call; €5-50K grants for code enhancements
  • Interoperable Europe Portal: Comprehensive EU funding landscape

Key insight: Every €1 invested in open source generates at least €4 in economic value across Europe.

Link: Interoperable Europe Portal

Model 7: EU NGI / Open Internet Stack

The NGI (Next Generation Internet) program funds small grants (€5-50K) for code enhancements, library development, and protocol work. Focuses on foundational internet technologies and open-source infrastructure.

Link: NGI Open Internet Stack

Funding Model Comparison

Model Funder Scale Duration Focus Coordination
EOSS / OS4S CZI + Kavli + Wellcome ~$58M total 2-year grants ($100K–$400K) Biomedical software maintenance Multi-funder coordinated
NASA OSTFL NASA SMD Multiple solicitations Up to 5 years (foundational), 3 years (sustainment) Space/Earth science infrastructure Standalone within ROSES
NSF PESOSE NSF TIP Up to $40M Multi-year Ecosystem building, security Standalone
UKRI RSMF UKRI / SSI £4.8M Up to 12 months Maintenance of existing UK software Centralized
Sloan OSPO Sloan Foundation Up to $750K / 2yr 2-year Institutional OSPO capacity Standalone
Sovereign Tech Fund German BMWK €24.6M deployed Variable Core infrastructure Non-overlapping constraint
FLOSS/fund Zerodha $1M/year Variable Global FOSS maintenance Standalone
Horizon Europe EU Commission €93.5B total Multi-year Software engineering fundamentals Centralized

Which Funding Model Fits Your Project?

The best funding model depends on your project’s stage, scope, and community. Here’s how to decide:

For Projects in Development

If you’re building new software for research, you’ll typically pursue project-specific grants from NASA (ROSES supplements), NSF (POSE → PESOSE), or DFG. These programs fund active development and the creation of new research tools.

For Established Projects Requiring Maintenance

If your software is mature and used widely, maintenance funds are your best path:

  • UKRI RSMF (£150K for 12 months) explicitly funds maintenance of existing software
  • OS4S ($250K grants via NumFOCUS) continues the EOSS legacy for mature biomedical tools
  • NASA OSTFL sustainment awards (3 years) for space/Earth science software

For Institutional Capacity Building

If your university lacks dedicated software support infrastructure, the Sloan OSPO grant ($750K over 2 years) funds university-level OSPOs with dedicated staff, training, and community-building programs. This is the closest thing to “infrastructure for infrastructure.”

For Core Infrastructure (Libraries, Protocols)

If your project is widely used by other technologies and falls underfunded by other actors, the Sovereign Tech Fund (€50K minimum) is designed exactly for this case.

The Coordination Challenge (and How It’s Being Solved)

The biggest inefficiency in current research software funding is fragmentation. Most funders operate independently, forcing projects to pursue multiple, often overlapping opportunities. This creates duplicated effort and suboptimal resource distribution.

ADORE.software (Amsterdam Declaration)

The Amsterdam Declaration on Funding Research Software Sustainability (v1.1, 2024) is the closest thing to a shared framework. It has 20+ signatories and covers four areas:

  1. Research software practice
  2. Research software ecosystem
  3. Research software personnel
  4. Research software ethics

Each area includes examples of funder programs, policies, and resources for implementation.

Link: ADORE.software Declaration

Research Software Funders Forum

Organized by ReSA, the Funders Forum brings together philanthropic and governmental funders to discuss coordination. The third international workshop was held in Sweden (2024). It’s part of the Global Research Council’s Multilateral Engagement Working Group.

Critical Gaps Still Needing Attention

Even as the landscape improves, several challenges remain:

1. No Global Endowment Fund

Unlike journal articles (DOI registration) or datasets (data repositories), there is no established endowment mechanism for long-term sustainability. Software projects cycle between periods of stable funding and periods relying on volunteer labor.

2. “Software in Research” Gap

Most programs fund research-created software, but don’t address the underlying dependencies (Python, NumPy, MPI) that researchers depend on. Who maintains NumPy? Who secures MPI? These are underfunded public goods.

3. Small, Single-Maintainer Projects

A project maintained by one person is vulnerable to creator departure. No dedicated funding exists for “transition planning” when maintainers graduate, retire, or move positions.

4. Security Auditing Consistently Underfunded

Vulnerabilities like XZ Utils and Log4j illustrate ecosystem-level risk. Underfunded projects cannot maintain security audits, creating supply chain vulnerabilities across all of research computing.

5. Career Recognition Gap

Despite CoARA and ReSA’s advocacy, software contributions remain undervalued in tenure/promotion decisions at most universities. Until academic incentives change, the maintenance trap persists.

Practical Steps for Researchers

1. Audit Your Dependencies

Identify which foundational software your project depends on. Most researchers have a requirements.txt or environment.yml listing 20–50 packages. Categorize each as “research software” (created for research) or “software in research” (infrastructure you depend on). Prioritize sustainability for the latter.

2. Understand Your Project’s Stage

  • Development phase: Pursue project-specific grants (NASA ROSES, NSF POSE, DFG)
  • Maintenance phase: Apply to maintenance funds (UKRI RSMF, OS4S)
  • Infrastructure phase: Support institutional OSPOs (Sloan) or Sovereign Tech Fund

3. Join the Coordination Efforts

  • Sign ADORE.software if your institution is a funder or research organization
  • Participate in ReSA’s Funders Forum (even if just observing)
  • Connect with Society of RSE for professional resources and advocacy

4. Build Internal Capacity

Regardless of external funding, start building institutional capacity now:

  • Appoint a research software manager or OSPO lead
  • Implement automated testing and CI/CD pipelines
  • Archive releases with DOIs (Zenodo)
  • Treat documentation as a formal research output

What We Recommend

For individual research projects: Apply to OS4S or UKRI RSMF if your software is mature. These programs provide the most predictable, multi-year sustainability support. The application process is standardized (OS4S via NumFOCUS portal), and the awards are substantial ($100K–$400K for OS4S, up to £150K for UKRI RSMF).

For university departments: Pursue the Sloan OSPO grant. $750K over 2 years for an institutional OSPO transforms the entire department’s software sustainability posture — not just one project, but an entire ecosystem.

For software foundations: Consider joining the Funders Forum and signing ADORE.software. Coordination reduces duplication and increases the total funding pool through collective advocacy.

For early-career researchers: Understand that software maintenance IS research. Build your career portfolio around sustainable, documented, well-tested code. The incentive mismatch is structural, but individual choices matter. Your next grant application should include maintenance budgets, not just development budgets.

Summary and Next Steps

The research software funding landscape is transitioning from ad-hoc, under-resourced maintenance to coordinated, multi-donor support. Seven distinct models now exist across government, philanthropy, and institutional funding. The challenge is not identifying funding sources — it’s understanding which model fits your project’s stage, scope, and community.

Your next steps:

  1. Categorize your project’s dependencies and maintenance needs
  2. Match those needs to the funding model that fits your stage
  3. Apply to the appropriate program with a clear maintenance plan
  4. Join the coordination efforts (ADORE.software, Funders Forum) to reduce fragmentation
  5. Build institutional capacity internally regardless of external funding

The field is improving, but not fast enough. Every abandoned research software project represents lost investment, threatened reproducibility, and eroded scientific trust. Funding research software isn’t a luxury — it’s a prerequisite for credible, reproducible science.

Related Guides

Want Help Building Sustainable Research Software?

If you’re planning a research software project or maintaining an existing codebase, I can help you identify funding opportunities, design maintenance strategies, and build institutional capacity. Reach out through the Contact page to discuss your project’s specific needs.