GEO OSE Track 2: Open Geoscience Accelerator: Building the Contributor Pipeline

Modern science depends on software, yet after publication research software is rarely maintained. Over time, unmaintained software becomes difficult to install and run, and its scientific value is gradually lost. This project, focused on the geosciences, strengthens the community that keeps research software working and available. It guides researchers from using software, to writing and improving it, to maintaining shared tools. It engages participants at every career stage, including high school students, and advances science that is reproducible, transparent, and collaborative. This project will build pathways through a software stewardship pipeline that guides people from user to modeler to contributor to maintainer. It centers on the GRASS open-source geospatial ecosystem, which serves as both a modeling environment and a stewardship system. The project will reduce technical friction by making contributed GRASS tools accessible within QGIS, distributing them through conda, and implementing Basic Model Interface wrappers for cross-model integration. The project will leverage AI-assisted approaches that ease contribution and maintenance while preserving quality. Workshops, contributor sprints, office hours, and mentoring will engage modelers, contributors, and maintainers in cross-project collaboration. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.