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Better incentives are needed to reward academic software development

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 7, pages 626–627 (2023)Cite this article

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Software innovation is critical for integrating, synthesizing and modelling big data in ecology and evolution1,2, and increasingly underlies analyses in high-profile research. However, underappreciation of the support needed to create and maintain the software that underpins scientific advances could cause stagnation, lead to insufficient maintenance and stifle innovation.

Software development in ecology and evolution, and perhaps across other fields as well, is at an important junction. Open software underpins most research today, increasing accessibility for scientists to perform state-of-the-art analyses. Positions that require programming skills have correspondingly doubled over the past decade3. The accuracy and reproducibility of scientific results is increasingly dependent on updating and maintaining software. However, the incentive structure in academia for software development — and especially maintenance — is insufficient. It is time that appropriate incentives are embraced to reflect their importance.

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Fig. 1: Current incentive structures do not reward academic software maintenance.

Cirenia Arias Baldrich

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Acknowledgements

C.M. and G.E.P.-B. acknowledge funding support from NSF DBI 1661510 and NASA 80NSSC18K0406. J.M.K. was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Postdoctoral Fellowships for Foreign Researchers Program. A.M.W. and B.S.M. are supported by NASA no. 80NSSC21K1183 and no. 80NSSC21K0086. B.J.E., C.M., B.B., B.S.M. and B.M. were supported by NSF HDR-1934790. B.J.E., C.M. and B.B. were supported by NSF HDR-1934790, NSF ABI-1565118 and BoCP - 2225076. B.J.E. was also supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research, Earth and Environmental Systems Sciences Division and Data Management Program, under award number DEAC02-05CH11231, as part of the Watershed Function Scientific Focus Area and the ExaShed project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Eversource Energy Center, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    Cory Merow

  2. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Brad Boyle & Brian J. Enquist

  3. Department of Geography, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Xiao Feng

  4. Biodiversity and Biocomplexity Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Onna, Japan

    Jamie M. Kass

  5. Department of Geography, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, USA

    Brian S. Maitner & Adam M. Wilson

  6. School of Biology and Ecology, University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA

    Brian McGill

  7. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions, University of Maine, Orono, ME, USA

    Brian McGill

  8. Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Hannah Owens

  9. Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Hannah Owens

  10. Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Daniel S. Park

  11. Purdue Center for Plant Biology, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Daniel S. Park

  12. Department of Environmental Systems Science, Institute of Integrative Biology, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Andrea Paz

  13. Department of Biology, City College of the City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

    Gonzalo E. Pinilla-Buitrago

  14. PhD Program in Biology, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, New York, NY, USA

    Gonzalo E. Pinilla-Buitrago

  15. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    Mark C. Urban

  16. Center of Biological Risk, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

    Mark C. Urban

  17. Departamento de Ecoloxía e Bioloxía Animal, Universidade de Vigo, Vigo, Spain

    Sara Varela

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  1. Cory Merow
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  9. Daniel S. Park
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Correspondence to Cory Merow.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Merow, C., Boyle, B., Enquist, B.J. et al. Better incentives are needed to reward academic software development. Nat Ecol Evol 7, 626–627 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02008-w

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