The Software Sustainability Institute works with a range of projects - tackling everything from library searches to nuclear fusion.
If you would like assistance from the Institute, why not consider submitting an application into our Open Call, or get in touch?
Completed projects
- SPIKE: We're assessing the SPIKE computational neuroscience software to help enhance its community usability and sustainability.
- LUX-ZEPLIN: We provided consultancy to LUX-ZEPLIN's researchers at University College London on migrating data storage and analysis software from Microsoft Excel to a database-centred solution. Read the case study.
- Synote: We've worked with Synote to improve their current development processes and infrastructure, and helped develop general best practice guidelines for development, deployment and testing.
- ionomicsHUB: The Institute has assisted in the process of migrating the iHUB plant genomics service from Purdue University in the US to the University of Nottingham in the UK, to ensure the continued use and sustainability of the service for the community.
- recipy: We've worked with the developers of recipy - an innovative way to track provenance in Python – to develop an automated test suite for recipy as a precursor to expanding the development of recipy and promoting recipy more widely.
- DataSHIELD: We've helped improve the DataSHIELD software, provided advice on software development processes, reviewed its project governance, and helped investigate funding support models.
- Mantid: We've conducted development and community reviews of the Mantid neutron and muon data analysis software to feed into a high-level review of the project to shape its future development.
- ReproPhylo: The Institute helped to make the software more sustainable by conducting a technical review of the software and testing infrastructure, and assisted in the exploration of ways to implement extensibility to interface with user tools.
- Clipper: We have conducted a sustainability assessment of the Clipper video and audio clip sharing software, documentation and collaboration processes, to help enhance its longer-term maintenance.
- MONC - prompting adoption and ongoing development: we worked with EPCC and the Met Office to promote the uptake, and ongoing development, of the Met Office NERC cloud (MONC) model within the atmospheric sciences community. We assessed how easy it is to deploy MONC, helped set up a MONC virtual machine and advised on setting up resources for engaging with and supporting researchers. Read the case study.
- APES - improving performance and interoperability of chemistry models: together with the EPCC, the Institute helped to enable key computational chemistry software packages to work together and run on supercomputers such as HECToR (and its upcoming successor ARCHER) to improve modeling performance.
- CGPACK: We've helped to improve the CGPACK microstructure simulations library for new users and developers, automating its build process and helping to design a regression test suite to ensure results correctness. We also assessed the overall sustainability of the software.
- RTI-VIPS: We have dramatically simplified the deployment process for their Reflectance Transformation Imaging software, packaging these complex components into an installer designed for use by researchers in the humanities.
- Cadabra: The Institute has worked with the symbolic quantum field theory computation software Cadabra to enhance it's open source repository, with improved support for developer and specifically user community activities, and to improve maintainability on multiple platforms.
- ProtoMS: We've helped to prepare the statistical thermodynamics and quantum mechanics ProtoMS software for wider use beyond its initial research group and existing users, introducing an automated test suite and assessing the sustainability of the software for longer-term improvement.
- Provenance Tool Suite - round-trip testing: we've assisted provenance researchers within Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton to introduce a test infrastructure to perform round-trip testing of their Provenance Tool Suite, a suite of software packages and services for handling W3C PROV-compliant provenance information. Read the case study.
- Seme4 Limited - releasing data service software as free open source software: we've helped Seme4 release the software that underpins their sameAs.org data service as a free open source software product, sameAs Lite.
- Aircraft Geometry and Surrogate Modelling: András Sóbester and Alexander Forrester, within the Faculty of Engineering and the Environment at the University of Southampton, have developed supervised learning codes for cost-effective aerospace engineering design. We provided consultancy to them on release management and community engagement.
- VAMPIRE - Vascular Assessment and Measurement Platform for Images of the REtina: The Institute has worked with the VAMPIRE team to improve their software's dependability, efficiency, and ease-of-use.
- INQUIRE - continuing to support multi-developer molecular simulation software: building on our previous collaboration, the Institute continued to provide support for AMRMMHD.
- BioJS - taking biological data visualization to next level: the Institute helped the BioJS community software along the road to production level, improving the sustainability of the project's community efforts and increasing the efficiency and organisation of their software development practices.
- recomputation.org - enhancing the reproducibility of software-based experiments: we've helped to make it easier for researchers to submit software experiments for others to reproduce in the long-term, using the Cloud.
- Distance - reducing the distance between theory and practice: we helped the Distance project to reduce the time between developing good theory, and published papers, and to deliver usable code into the hands of biologists, conservationists and statisticians. Read the case study.
- CGAT - computational genomics: analysis and training: The Institute is helping the CGAT team to improve the portability of their products and optimise their software development practices. Read the case study.
- ParaFEM - making finite element modeling software easy access: the Institute has made it easier for new users to evaluate the ParaFEM software library and verify its installation on complex HPC systems. Read the case study.
- DAWN - increasing uptake and improving community engagement: we've helped the DAWN development team to improve how they interact with synchrotron researchers using their software, and assisted in the promotion of DAWN to the wider scientific community. Read the case study.
- TPLS - parallel sustainability: we have helped to improve the usability, maintainability and flexibility of this innovative fluid dynamics code, complementing work to improve its robustness, flexibility, and performance. Read the case study.
- QuBIc - improving the design and development of MRI data analysis software: we've helped to improve the modularity and maintainability of QuBIC's FABBER and BASIL MRI data analysis software, introducing automated testing, and streamlining the processes by which the software is developed. Read the case study.
- LabBook - improving laboratory mobile app software for wider uptake: we've helped to build a sustainable future for lab notebook software, by assisting its maturation into an extensible, open-source platform and helping to grow a community of users. Read the case study.
- Jisc Software Hub - a catalogue of software from Jisc funded projects: we've helped Jisc explore which metadata, policies and processes are required to capture information about software developed by Jisc projects, and how it can be linked to the Jisc site. Read the case study.
- ForestGrowth-SRC - running more simulations to do more science: by scaling out the processing of biomass simulations to an institutional cluster, we've helped to reduce time-to-results from days to a matter of hours. Read the case study.
- DMACRYS - improving development practices for crystallography software: the Institute has worked with the DMACRYS team to create infrastructure and governance to allow the software's collaborative development to proceed in a manageable and scalable way, whilst protecting their intellectual investment. Read the case study.
- BoneJ - increasing community engagement: as well as providing a technical assessment of the software, we advised on a website redesign and assisted with community outreach to attract future contributors. Read the case study.
- ICLLM - improving infrastructure and development practice for collaboration: we helped the project's researchers to adopt a suitable revision control system and move to open-source development for their Lower Limb Model, to make it easier for external collaborations based around the software. Read the case study.
- AMRMMHD - from one man software project to successful multi-developer programme: we helped researchers in pharmacology to compartmentalise development of their molecular simulation software across a collaboration, whilst ensuring it remains compatible. Read the case study
- Libhpc - technical and community support for a generic HPC development framework: we've provided the libhpc project with access to parallel computation expertise and assisted in the engagement with research communities to promote uptake of the software.
- Arts-humanities.net - ensuring a long term future for a key resource: our work has ensured the long term future of a major website for the arts and humanities community. This global hub has also been extended so that different arts and humanities projects can share information. Read the case study.
- SURegen - improving usability of urban regeneration software: SURegen is an urban regeneration workbench developed at the University of Salford. We undertook a week long usability evaluation of the workbench.
- Synthsys - addressing new data analysis challenges: having increased both capability and capacity to a core research platform for the group, the SynthSys project can now work with larger and more complex data than was previously possible. Read the case study.
- DIAMOND - promoting uptake of software development processes: we discussed with a senior beam-line scientist at the DIAMOND Light Source approaches to adopting revision control and testing within his research group.
- SWOP - creating an ontology for software: the Software Ontology Project (SWOP) has leveraged the Institute's expertise in software to assist its creation of a software ontology, and the tools and techniques used to support the capture of this information by non-ontologists.
- TEXTvre - increasing usability of Digital Humanities software: the TEXTvre software is now easy to use, stable and comes complete with a comprehensive instruction set. Read the case study.
- MAUS - generating vast quantities of neutrinos: having an Institute Research Software Engineer embedded within the MICE project team, the Institute assisted in improving their MAUS software and the management of the software's development. Read the case study.
- SPRINT - making HPC accessible: we've helped to improve engagement with users, make their code more robust and able to process new types of data, and provide better resources and support available for users. Read the case study.
- ICAT - preparing the software for thousands of new users: recommendations to improve the structural, collaborative and development processes of the ICAT software have helped to ensure its successful development and sustained use as new, large projects come on board. Read the case study.
- MOPED - refactoring software for use in other domains: with help from the Institute, the team developed a more flexible code framework that separated out the various layers from hardware up to user interface allowing much faster revision and adaptation to new problems. Read the case study.
- NGS and SARoNGS - repairing a national grid security framework: we quickly identified the root cause of a complex security problem with the National Grid Service's SARoNGS single sign-on service based on Shibboleth.
- BRIC - making software accessible to new users: two software tools developed by the Brain Research Imaging Centre have been licensed and made publicly available on SourceForge, allowing the team to receive useful community feedback for improvement and raising the profile of the Centre. Read the case study.
- Culham Centre for Fusion Energy - visualising nuclear fusion: researchers can now easily visualise what happens inside a nuclear fusion reactor, allowing a greater insight into the physics of nuclear fusion. Read the case study.
- HSL Mathematical Software Library - improving a web site and assessing impact: the HSL library of FORTRAN codes for large scientific computation have been under development for over 50 years. We undertook a review of HSL's web site and research into which projects and products now use HSL.
- ECIAS - increasing simulation capability and throughput: the University of East Anglia's CIAS climate model has been extended to enable new types of climate simulation, and the software adapted to make use of a computational cluster which has greatly increased the number of simulations that can be run simultaneously. Read the case study.
- GeoTOD II - geospatial transformations for linked data: leveraging the Institute's expertise in software design development and the OGSA-DAI software, GeoTOD II now uses OGSA-DAI as part of its data-linking platform.
- JournalTOCS - transforming a research project into a business service: implementing all the recommendations made by the Institute's software review enabled the JournalTOCS team to see its usage triple and turnover pass £100,000. Read the case study.
- VRIC - assessing clinical trial analysis support software for wider use: following our sustainability evaluation, the VRIC software has been improved to enable other domains such a medicine and neurosurgery to make use of the software. Read the case study.
We also have a number of partners with whom we collaborate, which you can find here.