Continuously Accelerating Research

Science is facing a software reproducibility crisis. Software powers experimentation, and fuels insights, yielding new scientific contributions. Yet, the research software is often difficult for other researchers to reproducibly run. Beyond reproduction, research software that is truly reusable will speed science by allowing other researchers to easily build upon and extend prior work. As software engineering researchers, we believe that it is our duty to create tools and processes that instill reproducibility, reusability, and extensibility into research software. This paper outlines a vision for a community infrastructure that will bring the benefits of continuous integration to scientists developing research software. To persuade researchers to adopt this infrastructure, we will appeal to their self-interest by making it easier for them to develop and evaluate research prototypes. Building better research software is a complex socio-technical problem that requires stakeholders to join forces to solve this problem for the software engineering community, and the greater scientific community. This vision paper outlines an agenda for realizing a world where the reproducibility and reusability barriers in research software are lifted, continuously accelerating research.