Open Science NL – Open and Sustainable Research Software 2026 (OSS 2026)

Funding to provide research teams with dedicated Research Software Engineer (RSE) support from the Netherlands eScience Center to improve the sustainability of existing research software.

Regieorgaan Open Science NL (National Taskforce Open Science NL) is part of the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO – Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research). Open Science NL aims to make open science the default. It does so by supporting projects that accelerate the transition to open science, as well as monitor progress, facilitate knowledge sharing and provide coordination to jointly shape the national open science agenda.

The Netherlands eScience Center (NLeSC) is the national hub for the development and application of overarching software and methods for the scientific community. NLeSC is a joint initiative of the NWO and the Dutch organisation for ICT in education and research (SURF).

This call is is part of the Research software sustainability programme. This programme was established to address the challenges in software sustainability within the Dutch research landscape. The programme is a collaboration between Open Science NL and the Netherlands eScience Center and aims to strengthen the long-term sustainability, quality, and reuse of research software as a core component of the transition to open science.

The call provides research teams with dedicated Research Software Engineer (RSE) support from the Netherlands eScience Center to improve the sustainability of existing research software. Proposals that pursue one or more of the following objectives are invited:

• Broadening applicability: enabling successful research software to be used in disciplines or research problems beyond those from which it first emerged.
• Enhancing quality and maturity: raising the research software maturity level of existing research software.
• Building communities: supporting the formation and growth of communities of researchers and developers around research software.