The CROSS Incubator: A Case Study for funding and training RSEs
This paper presents a case study for universities on how to train, fund, and support research software engineers, which is an incremental contribution to the field of research software engineering.
The CROSS Incubator at UC Santa Cruz, funded with $2,000,000, has effectively trained PhD students in creating research software projects and engaging with open source communities over five years. It provides a model for funding and supporting research software engineers.
The incubator and research projects sponsored by the Center for Research in Open Source Software (CROSS, cross.ucsc.edu) at UC Santa Cruz have been very effective at promoting the professional and technical development of research software engineers. Carlos Maltzahn founded CROSS in 2015 with a generous gift of $2,000,000 from UC Santa Cruz alumnus Dr. Sage Weil and founding memberships of Toshiba America Electronic Components, SK Hynix Memory Solutions, and Micron Technology. Over the past five years, CROSS funding has enabled PhD students to not only create research software projects but also learn how to draw in new contributors and leverage established open source software communities. This position paper will present CROSS fellowships as case studies for how university-led open source projects can create a real-world, reproducible model for effectively training, funding and supporting research software engineers.