Palaeoverse

Converting Users to Contributors: Enabling Sustainable Maintenance and Development of Palaeoverse

Funding agency:

Institute of Research Software (UKRI), Research Software Maintenance Fund grant

Grant reference:

AH/Z000114/1

Period:

2026—28

Project co-leads:

Dr Lewis A. Jones, University College London, UK (Lead applicant) | Dr Bethany J. Allen, GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, Germany | Dr Christopher D. Dean, Department of Energy Security and Net Zero, UK | Dr Harriet B. Drage, University of Geneva, Switzerland | Dr Erin M. Dillon, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama | Dr Joseph T. Flannery-Sutherland, University of Birmingham, UK | Dr William Gearty, Syracuse University, USA | Dr Pedro L. Godoy, University of São Paulo, Brazil

Summary

Palaeoverse is an initiative to unite the palaeobiological community through shared resources, training events, development of useful software tools, and a commitment to improving accessibility and reproducibility in palaeobiological research. We have since published a number of R packages of quantitative palaeobiological analyses, published articles on best practices for handling data (see link below), run a monthly methods online seminar, and host a community space on Zulip, amongst other work.

This project aims to evolve Palaeoverse into a community-driven project, where users actively contribute to the development, maintenance, and review of Palaeoverse software. We have five key objectives: (1) audit and update existing Palaeoverse software packages to improve internal structure, code readability, and maintainability; (2) expand contributor guidelines and documentation to support community contributions; (3) develop and run multiple community training events each year on research software development and open science; (4) develop and run a dedicated mentorship programme to train early-career researchers in research software development and maintenance; and (5) re-define Palaeoverse’s governance structure to support long-term strategic planning and drive towards community ownership.