We are pleased to introduce the 19 projects funded through the Research Software Maintenance Fund (RSMF), following our previous announcement of the Round 2 funding outcomes.
The Research Software Maintenance Fund, run by the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) with financial support from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), supports the maintenance and long-term sustainability of research software important to the UK research community.
The 19 successful projects will receive a total of about £2.73 million, following confirmation of additional funding for this round from the UKRI DRI programme. Each project will receive up to £150,000 and last up to 12 months.
The successful projects support more than 25 software packages, platforms, and components. All maintain openly licensed software. Python is used by 11 projects, C++ by six and Fortran by four, with R, C, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby and other specialist technologies also represented. The earliest software was first released in 2004, while the most recent was released in 2025; 12 projects support software first released in or before 2014.
The funded portfolio spans a wide range of research applications, including atmospheric, climate and environmental modelling; tools for web mapping, spatial network analysis and geospatial data analysis; managing and analysing medical imaging data; validating genomics data; infectious disease modelling; analysing and visualising molecular data; performing text analysis and choice modelling; managing training data; and supporting simulation methods such as smooth-particle hydrodynamics, computational fluid dynamics and agent-based modelling.
This work will help maintain and improve established research software by addressing issues such as technical debt, testing and documentation, software architecture, accessibility, community engagement, and long-term sustainability.
The projects will address challenges including technical debt, testing, documentation, software architecture, accessibility, interoperability, community development, and long-term governance. Four are led by Research Software Engineers or other research technical professionals, and the funded teams involve 25 lead and co-lead organisations.
Funded projects
Projects are listed alphabetically. Find more details in the RSMF R2 project page.
Apollo in Python
Focus: Develop a Python interface for Apollo’s established R-based choice-modelling framework, with cross-language testing, documentation and governance to connect behavioural modelling with modern data-science, AI and machine-learning workflows.
Automating FAIR Training Metadata Pipelines: Bioconductor into TeSS and Beyond (BITS)
Focus: Automate the collection of Bioconductor training resources in the TeSS registry using Bioschemas and JSON-LD, reducing manual curation and making life-science training easier to find, access and reuse.
Delivering the UKCA Box model: Improving Organisation, Usability and Sustainability (DUBIOUS)
Focus: Deliver a lightweight version of the UK Chemistry and Aerosols model that can run without specialist Met Office infrastructure, alongside automated testing to make atmospheric chemistry and climate modelling more accessible and maintainable.
Democratising Qualitative Text Analysis Through Enhanced Usability and Bilingual Capability in FreeTxt
Focus: Strengthen the usability, reliability and Welsh-language capabilities of FreeTxt, a secure, open-source toolkit that enables non-specialists to analyse and visualise English and Welsh qualitative text.
Enhancing community adoption and development of the peaks package for photoemission analysis
Focus: Refactor the peaks package around a plugin-based architecture, improve testing and remote workflows, and develop training, contribution and governance structures to support community-led maintenance of photoemission analysis software.
FLAME GPU
Focus: Expand hardware support and Python interoperability for the FLAME GPU agent-based modelling platform, while improving documentation, training, contribution pathways and governance to broaden its use across research disciplines.
Fostering a community of users and contributors with DeepSensor
Focus: Transition DeepSensor, an open-source Python package for applying neural processes to environmental data, towards a community-maintained model with stronger governance, contribution pathways and support for users and developers.
Future-proofing, maintaining and disseminating the SWIFT astrophysics code
Focus: Establish a maintainable and portable framework for accelerating SWIFT’s astrophysical simulations on GPUs, alongside workshops and practical support to help users adopt and contribute to its new capabilities.
Geospatial Maintenance for Urban Social and Environmental Sciences (GeoMUSES)
Focus: Complete the migration from the unmaintained pandana package to pandarm across GeoPandas and PySAL, and develop integrated documentation and training for the geospatial Python ecosystem.
gVXR2Vulkan: Futureproofing gVirtualXray with a state-of-the-art graphics API
Focus: Migrate the gVirtualXray simulation platform from OpenGL to Vulkan to improve performance, hardware compatibility and longevity, while strengthening documentation, software quality and community support.
Isca: a flexible climate modelling framework – lowering barriers to installation and use
Focus: Create reliable cross-platform installation routes for Isca, consolidate community developments, strengthen automated testing and formalise governance to make the climate-modelling framework easier to use and maintain.
Maintaining Essential Variant Validation Software for Research and Diagnostics: LOVD and VariantValidator
Focus: Refactor and strengthen VariantValidator, the Leiden Open Variation Database and associated validation tools to improve interoperability, documentation and governance for standards-compliant genomic research and clinical diagnostics.
Maintaining a Global Open Standard Ecosystem for Large-Scale EEG Science
Focus: Reduce technical debt and improve interoperability across the LORIS–EEG–BIDS software ecosystem, helping researchers create standardised, reproducible and AI-ready EEG datasets for large-scale neuroscience.
Maintaining OpenFOAM’s GPU pathway through architectural refactoring and community adoption
Focus: Turn OpenFOAM’s existing GPU capability into a robust, maintainable and production-ready pathway through architectural refactoring, multi-GPU support, documentation, training and integration with mainstream community development.
MDAnalysis: sustainable maintenance for the molecular simulation community
Focus: Provide dedicated software engineering and community-management capacity to maintain MDAnalysis, improve testing and documentation, sustain interoperability with simulation tools and train future contributors and maintainers.
Modernising Xcompact3D for Exascale Computing: Enabling AI-Ready Turbulence Simulation for Next-Generation UK HPC
Focus: Complete the GPU-capable x3d2 solver, including AMD GPU support, production testing, example cases and migration tools, to prepare Xcompact3D for next-generation UK computing infrastructure.
Peripleo
Focus: Rebuild Peripleo as an accessible, browser-based web-mapping tool that researchers and heritage organisations can configure without coding or hosting costs, supported by improved data preparation and community governance.
Sustaining depthmapX: Modernising Spatial Network Analysis for UK Research
Focus: Modernise depthmapX through Qt6 migration, support for current geospatial formats, Python integration and accessibility improvements, alongside stronger contribution pathways and long-term community governance.
Sustaining the ODM modelling stack for infectious-disease research
Focus: Consolidate the ODM infectious-disease modelling toolkit through code integration, expanded testing, improved documentation and a formal maintainer model, creating more reliable infrastructure for future public-health research and emergencies.
Further information
To read more about these projects, visit the RSMF Round 2 projects webpage on the SSI website.
The Research Software Maintenance Fund is supported through a £5.8 million UKRI investment and delivered by the Software Sustainability Institute. Its objective is to strengthen the resilience of the UK’s research software ecosystem and generate evidence about the most effective ways to support essential research software.