This initiative aims to enhance the Software Heritage (SWH) archive, the world's largest collection of software source code, by developing advanced compression and search capabilities. This work is particularly timely, given the increasing use of generative AI in software development and maintenance, but also in the use of code to train better-performing generative AI tools. SWH currently stores code using basic compression and search functionalities, which limit users to search only by metadata rather than within the actual code. The project will pursue two parallel research tracks: creating more efficient lossless compression methods and developing novel "code-to-code" search functionality. These improvements would enable researchers to perform sophisticated searches within the SWH codebase and make its computational infrastructure more sustainable and scalable. The enhancements could empower diverse applications. Beyond improving SWH itself, this research has the potential to benefit the broader open-source ecosystem by lowering barriers to using SWH in training next-generation AI models, providing essential tools for verifying provenance of code (possibly AI-generated), and supporting new cybersecurity applications.

As Research Software Engineers (RSEs) become more integrated into academic institutions and scientific grant proposals, there's a growing need to understand their impact, but empirical data on RSEs' technical and scientific contributions remains limited. To address this gap, Carnegie Mellon's James Herbsleb (who studies code contributions and hackathons) and University of Washington's Anissa Tanweer (an expert on data science practices) propose a comprehensive study combining ethnographic research on four university-based RSE teams and their scientific partners, as well as large-scale analysis of networks and code contributions in open-source scientific software projects with RSE involvement Schmidt Sciences will co-fund this initiative, and study sites will include representation from their "Virtual Institute for Scientific Software" program. The research aims to identify challenges, best practices, and impact measurements for RSE teams, with findings targeted toward university administrators and funders who are considering investments in RSE positions—delivering timely insights as this professional role continues to evolve.

Over more than a decade, The Carpentries has become a vital resource for the computational research community, providing critical training and upskilling for researchers through an impressive network of 4,000+ volunteer instructors. In 2024 alone, they trained approximately 7,000 researchers through 278 workshops. Their open curricula extend this impact even further. The Carpentries maintains a core business model based on institutional memberships, supplemented by philanthropy. This grant will primarily fund personnel costs, particularly in curriculum development and community management, plus governance meetings to implement their strategic plan.