2024 is drawing to an end and as we prepare for our festive holidays, things will be quiet at the SSI from today, Monday 23 December, until Friday 3 January 2025.
We would like to take this opportunity to wish our friends and colleagues all the best for the holiday season, and we look forward to another great year in 2025.
If you want to look back at what we have done and achieved during the past year, keep reading. It's time for our yearly Software Sustainability Institute highlights!
Our top highlight
In August, we announced that the SSI has been awarded a record £10.2 million funding for a new project phase from 2024-2028 to continue our vital work as the first organisation in the world dedicated to improving software in research.
Our events
In May, we ran our flagship event Collaborations Workshop 2024 (CW24), which took place as a hybrid event at the University of Warwick and focused on Environmental Sustainability, Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) tools for science, and Citizen science.
In November, we hosted the Research Software Camp: Digital Skills for Research Technical Staff which consisted of a series of talks, workshops, and curated material published on our website.
Our programmes
In June, we announced GreenDiSC, a new certification scheme which provides a roadmap for research groups and institutions who want to tackle the environmental impacts of their computing activities. This initiative was developed and is managed by SSI Fellow Loïc Lannelongue at the University of Cambridge.
In September we launched a new project titled Research Software Practices in the Social Sciences which aims to promote research software best practices in social sciences through various outreach activities.
In December, following an exciting application process that featured 69 applications from 43 institutions, spanning 40 research areas and 11 countries and a rigorous review process that generated 207 assessments by 29 reviewers, we announced a new cohort of 27 SSI Fellows.
Our publications
In January, we published the report Software and skills for research computing in the UK, which provides an analysis of the transformative role of software and the individuals behind it in reshaping the research landscape and delivers crucial insights into the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for research computing in the UK.
Later that month, SSI Research Director Caroline Jay co-authored an article published on Nature titled Prioritise environmental sustainability in use of AI and data science methods which reflects on the relationship between Artificial Intelligence and environmental sustainability.
In June, SSI Director of Strategy Simon Hettrick co-authored an article published on Research Professional News titled Here's why the Hidden REF is still needed.
In September, Simon Hettrick was featured in a Nature article titled The Human Costs of the Research-Assessment Culture which explores the impact of the UK Research Excellence Framework (REF) on the lives of those involved in research.
In November, SSI Project Manager Kirsty Pringle's Air Quality Stripes project was featured in a BBC Future article titled A famous climate graphic is running out of red.