As part of the Government of Canada’s Digital Research Infrastructure Strategy, CANARIE is transitioning the Research Software Program to the Digital Research Alliance of Canada (the Alliance). As the Alliance works to develop its approach to a comprehensive software registry, CANARIE will wind down its research software registry at science.canarie.ca at the end of August 2022. Please visit the Alliance’s website or subscribe to their newsletter for more information about research software support and funding. 

Research Software

The Research Software Program connects researchers to software tools and resources that accelerate discovery.

Our Research Software Program provides funding and support to Canadian researchers so that they have access to world-class software tools that are purpose-built for research. This software could apply to one or multiple stages of the research workflow, from data collection and storage, to processing, and visualization.

Equally important, software funded through this program makes it easier for Canadian researchers across all disciplines to benefit from Canada’s digital research infrastructure, including the National Research and Education Network and high-performance computing resources through, Compute Canada.

And because the functionality of software to support research is often similar, even across different research disciplines the Research Software program advocates for the sharing and re-use of research software throughout all stages of the development lifecycle.

“The more we share, the more we have.” – Leonard Nimoy

Why share software? Because when you don’t have to start from scratch, you accelerate time to discovery. And less time and funding used for software development means more time and funding for the research itself.

Software developed with CANARIE funding is contributed to the Canadian Research Software Registry and is freely available for use by all researchers. Most software in the registry is open source, so if it doesn’t do exactly what you need, it is easy to modify.

Software that will be re-used should be built to a higher standard.

How do you build better software? By promoting software development practices, sharing expertise, and investing in a collaborative community of world-class research software developers.

Through the Canadian Research Software Conference (CRSC) and funding that specifically supports re-use, we’ve invested in the people who develop software, so that it will be sustainable for research in the long term.

All research can benefit from software, but not all researchers have access to software development experts.

Many researchers don’t have the resources to manage software development teams and are unaware of research software that already exists and could be easily adapted to meet their needs. To serve this need, we’re also funding local, expert software teams at institutions to work directly with researchers. These dedicated, full-time research software developers are available to support all researchers at their institutions, regardless of discipline, and provide guidance, training, expertise, and software development specific to advancing research projects.

Research Software Development Funding

We’re proud to have supported 87 research teams by funding and supporting software development projects that were critical to their work.

Learn about this software and the research it enabled

Research Software Registry

All software funded by CANARIE is contributed to the Canadian Research Software Registry and can be used freely for research purposes. The Registry includes complete platforms and function-specific components, known as “Software Services”.

Explore the Registry

Canadian Research Software Conference

Each year, we host the Canadian Research Software Conference, where the community of software developers in academia come together to learn and contribute best practices and explore collaboration opportunities.

Check out this year’s event and see highlights from previous years

Support

Download technical docs, read our FAQs and newsletter archives, and contact us for help.

Access Support

How we’ve funded software for research has evolved.

Since 2007, CANARIE has been funding Canadian research teams with a need for research software platforms. As we learned more about how software is used by research teams, we evolved what was funded:

Fully custom platforms for individual projects

Platforms that re-used existing software components and produced new ones that could be shared

Platforms that would be shared by other research teams

Local teams of software developers at higher education and research institutions

Transition to New Digital Research Infrastructure Organization (NDRIO)

In 2019, the Government of Canada announced the creation of a new organization, tentatively known as NDRIO, that will fund and support research software in Canada. To maintain a seamless flow of funding and support to Canadian researchers with critical requirements for software, we are working very closely with our colleagues at NDRIO to ensure a smooth transition of the program in 2022.

Currently, we’re delighted to be funding 13 research teams through Funding Call 3, and 6 software development teams at Canadian higher-ed and research institutions, through Local Research Software Support Call 1.

Future funding calls for research software will be announced by NDRIO.

The research software community is global.

Developing software for scientific research is a team sport. The global research software developer community collaborates on best practices, software re-use, and initiatives that foster career development for developers in academia. We’re proud to have represented and promoted the Canadian research software developer community among these international bodies:

Program News

June 02, 2022

Evolution of Research Software supporting world-class discovery transitions from CANARIE to the Digital Research Alliance of Canada

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November 26, 2020

To Equip Canadian Researchers with Powerful Software Tools and Expertise, CANARIE Awards $3.6M to Six Institutions to Fund Local Research Software Development Teams

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October 15, 2020

To Spur Software Re-use in Research, CANARIE Awards up to $3.4M to Research Teams to Evolve their Platforms for Use by Other Researchers

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