New Research Software Award Joins the Eureka Prizes

We’re excited to announce that in 2023 a new ARDC-sponsored award for excellence in research software will join the Australian Museum Eureka Prizes, Australia’s leading science awards.

Research software is an enabler of research: most research today relies on software to analyse data. Yet it’s often an invisible part of research, going uncited in journal papers, and the time and effort for researchers to create and maintain research software is unrecognised.

That’s why the ARDC has established a national agenda to recognise research software as a first-class research output. We’re working collaboratively to deliver the agenda by engaging widely with Australia’s research sector.

Dr Tom Honeyman, Software Program Manager at the ARDC, said, “With this award we are recognising the important place that research software holds in the conduct of modern research.

“Most research cannot be conducted without the use of specialised research software. This award will recognise the critical role of both the people developing and maintaining research software and the fruits of their labour.”

Dr Manodeep Sinha, Senior Research Software Scientist at the Centre for Astrophysics & Supercomputing (SUT, ASTRO 3D CoE) and Co-Chair of the Research Software Engineers Association of Australia and New Zealand, said, “The new Eureka prize for ‘Excellence in Research Software’ is a significant step toward recognising and rewarding the critical role of research software engineers in modern research. This award is one of the necessary steps for a sustainable research software infrastructure.”

September brings the opportunity to learn more about research software engineering and be part of this growing community. Join the first Research Software Engineer Asia Australia Unconference on 14-16 September. Scholarships and microgrants are available — register now.

More ARDC-Supported Awards for Research Software

Alongside the new Eureka Prize, the ARDC is supporting a suite of awards across different research disciplines to recognise research software as the expression of new ideas, methods and models in research.

The first of the ARDC-supported awards was the Statistical Society of Australia’s Venables Award for Developers of Open Source Software for Data Analytics. The award was won by Lydia Lucchesi (ANU), Sam Nelson (Data61 CSIRO) and Petra Kuhnert (Data61 CSIRO) for their research software project to enable approaches to visualisation of uncertainty in spatial data. Read our interview with Lydia and Sam, and join an upcoming webinar on 8 September 2022 at 12pm AEST at Monash University and online — register now.

Three awards are currently open for applications:

ARDC Award for New Developers of Open Source Software in Ecology

• Applications Close: 4 September
• Run by: Ecological Society Australia

This award encourages new open source software development from the Australian ecological research community. It aims to support efforts to develop and share methodology, models and data in ecology and management of Australia’s ecological communities. Apply now >

Torsten Seemann Outstanding Bioinformatics Software Developer Award, Sponsored by the ARDC

• Applications Close: 12 September
• Run by: Australian Bioinformatics And Computational Biology Society (ABACBS)

This new award, sponsored by the ARDC for ABACBS, recognises an outstanding EMCR bioinformatic software developer from the Australian community. Apply now >

Outstanding Bioinformatics Software Maintainer Award, Sponsored by the ARDC

• Applications Close: 12 September
• Run by: ABACBS

This new award, also sponsored by the ARDC for ABACBS, recognises bioinformaticians who provide outstanding support and maintenance for widely used bioinformatics software. Apply now >

Learn more about the ARDC Research Software Agenda for Australia.

The ARDC is funded through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) to support national digital research infrastructure for Australian researchers.