Researchers will be paid to attend conferences by SSI

The Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) will pay up to £3,000 a year to researchers who use software in their research, to enable them to attend conferences and report back on developments in their field.

The SSI - comprising the University of Southampton’s ECS – Electronics and Computer Science, the myGrid team at the University of Manchester and led by EPCC at the University of Edinburgh - is funded by the UK research councils to help researchers use and develop software for their research.

As part of an initiative designed to better understand the fields that most need the SSI’s expertise, the Institute is setting up a network of Agents. These Agents (researchers) will receive travelling expenses in return for a short report about the conference attended and views on the topics and software that look most promising in the future.

The benefits are: • Up to £3000 a year to attend conferences and events • Support for software development in the researchers’ fields • Add world-leading researchers to researchers’ professional network • Free attendance at training events for new tools and technologies • Improved knowledge of effective techniques for developing sustainable software • A great addition to researchers’ CVs

“You don’t have to be a professor or a principal investigator,” said Neil Chue Hong, Director of the SSI. “We are looking for UK-based researchers with a good knowledge of their field, who are keen to travel and to meet new people, and have experience of national and international collaborations. We are looking for applicants from all disciplines and especially from the fields that have been flagged as strategically important to UK research: the ageing population, environment and climate change, the digital economy, energy and food security.”

After a three-month trial period, Agents will be recruited for an initial term of one year, which is renewable each year.

The closing date is: 8 August 2011. For further information, please visit www.software.ac.uk/agents or email: Agents@software.ac.uk

The Software Sustainability Institute is a national facility for building better software. Working with projects from all disciplines – from nuclear fusion to climate change - the SSI provides the expertise and services needed to improve software and increase its growth and adoption. Further information at www.software.ac.uk.