Software Sustainability Institute awarded £6.5m funding for phase three

The Software Sustainability Institute, of which The University of Manchester is a collaborator, has been awarded £6.5 million for its third phase.

The funding, from the seven UK Research Councils that are part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will enable the Institute - a team of software experts from the universities of Edinburgh, Manchester Oxford and Southampton - to continue its work in helping researchers increase the impact of their research through the use of software. 

Of the full amount, £1.6 million will go to Manchester. Dr Caroline Jay, Senior Lecturer in Empirically Sound Software Engineering in the School of Computer Science, will be the Institute's inaugural Research Director. 

Dr Jay commented: "The Institute has been supporting researchers in writing better software since 2010. In its next phase, we will focus on building the evidence bank for practice and policy, to ensure that the software underpinning research in the UK - and internationally - is engineered in the most robust, reliable and reusable way."

Objectives for the new phase include the growth of communities to better share expertise across the wider research community, and the offering of insight into the use of software in research. The Institute also aims to continue enabling widespread adoption of research software practices and to provide training to build a researcher community and increase recognition of software in research.