ARDC-Sponsored Research Software Awards and Prizes

The ARDC is proud to sponsor awards for research software and research software engineers in all stages of their careers. The goal of the awards is to strengthen the recognition of research software and those who develop and maintain it as being vital to modern research.
The ARDC continues to sponsor a wide range of research software awards.
Newly Announced Awards
The Ecological Society of Australia (ESA) has an ARDC-sponsored award for New Developers of Open Source Software in Ecology.
2024 winner
- Dr Juergen Knauer, Western Sydney University and the
bigleaf
team
Previous winners
- 2023: Dr Roozbeh Valavi
- 2022: Dr Fonti Kar
Further information
Learn more about this award on the ESA website.
The Statistical Society of Australia (SSA) Bill Venables Award is for new developers of open source software for data analytics, sponsored by the ARDC.
2024 winners
Two developers shared this year’s award, each receiving $2500:
- Alex Lee for his software
whereabouts
, a light-weight Python package for bulk geocoding and address standardization - Rob Moss for his software
pypfilt
, which implements several online inference methods that have been used in many scientific fields for real-time forecasting, with the COVID-19 pandemic being one of the most high-profile examples.
Previous winners
- 2023: Matthew Sainsbury-Dale, Andrew Zammit-Mangion
- 2022: Dr Lydia Lucchesi and Sam Nelson and the Vizumap team
Further information
Learn more about this award on the SSA website.
Awards Open for Submission
The Astronomical Society of Australia (ASA) has an Emerging Leaders in Astronomy Software Development Prize, sponsored by the ARDC, for early-career researchers (ECRs) who have produced or contributed to new open-source astronomy software.
2025 entries are now open until Friday 14 February.
Who should apply
Early-career researchers (ECRs) who have produced or contributed to new open-source astronomy software
Previous winner
- 2024: Dr Kate Harborne
- 2023: Dr Manodeep Sinha
Further information
Learn more about this award on the ASA website.
Awards Opening Soon
Sponsored and presented by the ARDC, the Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Excellence in Research Software is awarded for the development, maintenance or extension of software that has enabled significant new scientific research.
2025 timeline
Entries open | Tuesday 11 February |
Entries close | 7 pm (AEST), Monday 14 April |
Finalists announced | Thursday 31 July |
Winners announced at the 2025 Eureka Prizes Award Ceremony | Wednesday 3 September |
Who should apply
Developers and maintainers of research software
Previous winners and finalists
2024
- Winner: Professor Gordon Smyth
- Finalists: MiniZinc, MRtrix3
2023
- Winners: Dr Minh Bui and Professor Robert Lanfear
- Finalists: GPlates, mixOmics
Further information
Learn more about this award on the Australian Museum website.
Past Awards
This award from the Australian Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Society (ABACBS) recognised outstanding early- and mid-career researcher (EMCR) bioinformatics software developer from the Australian community with a view to promoting further efforts to develop and share bioinformatics methodologies.
Winners
- 2023: Dr Ryan Wick
- 2022: Dr Michael Roach
Further information
Learn more about this award on the ABACBS website.
This award from Australian Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Society (ABACBS) recognised bioinformaticians from the Australian community who provide outstanding levels of support and maintenance for widely used bioinformatics software. This award aims to promote efforts amongst our community members to document, maintain and support high-quality bioinformatics software.
Winners
- 2023: Dr Juan Nunez-Iglesias (read our 2022 interview with him)
- 2022: Catherine Bromhead
Further information
Learn more about this award on the ABACBS website.
Start planning your submission now!
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