Re: [Numpy-discussion] grant proposal for core scientific Python projects (rejected)
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Hi Ralf, The rejection is disappointing, for sure. Some good ammo for next time might be the recommendations in this report from the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine: http://sites.nationalacademies.org/SSB/CurrentProjects/SSB_178892 https://www.nap.edu/read/25217/chapter/1#ii You can download a free PDF if you click around and give them an email address. There is some code on the cover that might raise a smile. Lorena Barba, Kelle Cruz, and many other community members contributed, both as committee members and as white-paper authors. While it's a report for NASA, the conclusions are strong and there is explicit support of investment in community resources like numpy, scipy, astropy, matplotlib, etc. Other agencies are asking similar questions, so I expect the report to get somewhat of a look at NSF, etc. A note on the Academies' process: A consensus study report must only include statements that no single member of the committee objects to, and the committee generally only includes senior members or people with a lot of relevant experience. There were stakeholders from some large modeling shops for whom openness might be a threat to their business model, in their eyes, and some of the senior members had never experienced the open-source environment and had bad experiences sharing software. This made for an interesting social dynamic, and prevented an all-out recommendation to forcibly open everything immediately. Given all that, I was ultimately pleased that we got full agreement on the recommendations we did make. So, some general thoughts on fundraising, not specific to this proposal: 1. Try NASA. The Administrator for Space Science, Thomas Zurbuchen, is pushing "open" very hard, given the success of open data in NASA Earth Science, and its positive impact on the economy in fields like agriculture and weather forecasting. He paid for the study above. Many grant programs specifically solicit proposals for open-source tools. There are also technology development programs in other parts of NASA than the Science Mission Directorate. Try contacting Dr. Michael New, who is Zurbuchen's deputy, and could direct you to appropriate programs. (Please, let's be coordinated and not all deluge the guy.) 2. As suggested in another message, it's often easier to get support for a specific, targeted item as part of a big project or institute using that item, such as LSST or the black-hole group. There's a certain way to wend into those projects, usually originating from within. STScI has long devoted programmer resources, for example. 3. There's such a thing as a share-in-savings contract at NASA, in which you calculate a savings, such as from avoided costs of licensing IDL or Matlab, and say you'll develop a replacement for that product that costs less, in exchange for a portion of the savings. These are rare and few people know about them, but one presenter to the committee did discuss them and thought they'd be appropriate. I've always felt that we could get a chunk of change this way, and was surprised to find that the approach exists and has a name. About 3 of 4 people I talk to at NASA have no idea this even exists, though, and I haven't pursued it to its logical end to see if it's viable. 4. I mostly lurk here, since being more actively involved in the early days of numpy docs, so maybe this one has been tried already, or is in the works. My apologies if so. Think of development as a product to buy. You could put chunks of development up for sale, advertise them, and coordinate one or more groups buying them together. For something like an efficiency boost, you could price it according to the avoided cost of CPU resources for a project of a given size (e.g., somewhat below the net present value of avoided future AWS cycles for the projects buying it). It would be like buying a custom-built data pipeline, except that once you buy it, everyone gets it. This might mean scoping out a roadmap of improvements, packaging them into fundable projects with teams ready to go, pricing them, advertising them to specific customers and in trade media and shows, and making sales pitches. This sounds really weird to us scientists, but it would work just like a regular purchase for services, which the government and industry are much more used to doing than donations to open-source projects. Don't just sell what the customer is buying, sell in the manner that the customer likes to buy. 5. And, keep trying grant proposals to NSF! --jh-- On 4/18/19 6:36 AM, Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/851ff10fbb1363b7d6111ac60194cc1c.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Very much second Joe's recommendations - especially trying NASA - which has an amazing track record of open data also in astronomy (and a history of open source analysis tools, as well as the "Astrophysics Data System"). -- Marten
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5f88830d19f9c83e2ddfd913496c5025.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Thu, Apr 18, 2019 at 10:03 PM Joe Harrington <jh@physics.ucf.edu> wrote:
Thanks, very useful!
I agree. NASA is the agency that probably understands our importance and needs the best of any agency, and we have a lot of things to point to that are important to them.
Maybe that is indeed the way to go. The real goal is maintenance/evolution though, so it's a bit of a stretch. The strategy does work, see Dask & Pangeo, however it would be nicer not to have to spend 80-90% of a budget on things we can sell to get the 10-20% of funding for the things we think are most important to do ....
I've heard of these. Definitely worth looking into.
4. I mostly lurk here, since being more actively involved in the early days of numpy docs,
I remember, that's what got me involved in the first place - thanks again for that:) so maybe this one has been tried already, or is in
the works. My apologies if so.
No we haven't tried it, perhaps we should.
This sounds good. It's what I hope places like Quansight Labs (where I just started working) can help with. Same for Ursa Labs (focuses on Apache Arrow, may connect back to Pandas) and Quantstack (xtensor numpy-like C++ lib, a faster conda solver, ...). And with our roadmaps maturing and all projects now being under the NumFOCUS umbrella (except scikit-learn, which has its own nonprofit), this may become a way of the future. Jupyter is already further along this path. We still have some growing up to do though:)
:) Thanks for the feedback Joe! Cheers, Ralf
5. And, keep trying grant proposals to NSF!
--jh--
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5f88830d19f9c83e2ddfd913496c5025.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Sat, Apr 20, 2019 at 12:41 PM Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
It seems to be hard to find any information about these share-in-savings contracts. The closest thing I found is this: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/06/22/2018-13463/nasa-federal... It is called "Shared Savings" there, and was replaced last year by something called "Value Engineering Change Proposal". If anyone can comment on whether that's the same thing as Joe meant and whether this is worth following up on, that would be very helpful. Cheers, Ralf
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5dde29b54a3f1b76b2541d0a4a9b232c.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Sounds like this is a NASA specific thing, in which case, I guess someone at NASA would need to step up. I’m afraid I know no pythonistas at NASA. But I’ll poke around NOAA to see if there’s anything similar. -CHB On Apr 25, 2019, at 1:04 PM, Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote: On Sat, Apr 20, 2019 at 12:41 PM Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
It seems to be hard to find any information about these share-in-savings contracts. The closest thing I found is this: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/06/22/2018-13463/nasa-federal... It is called "Shared Savings" there, and was replaced last year by something called "Value Engineering Change Proposal". If anyone can comment on whether that's the same thing as Joe meant and whether this is worth following up on, that would be very helpful. Cheers, Ralf _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
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I am a NASA pythonista (for 20+ years ;), but you can now say you know yet another person at NASA who has no idea this even exists ... :) Not only do I not know of that, but I know of NASA policies that make it very difficult for NASA civil servants to contribute to open source projects -- quite hypocritical, given the amount of open source code that NASA (like all other large organizations) depends critically on, but it's a fact. Cheers, Steve Waterbury (CLEARLY **NOT** SPEAKING IN ANY OFFICIAL CAPACITY FOR NASA OR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT AS A WHOLE! Hence the personal email address. :) On 5/2/19 9:31 PM, Chris Barker - NOAA Federal wrote:
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5f88830d19f9c83e2ddfd913496c5025.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 3:49 AM Stephen Waterbury <waterbug@pangalactic.us> wrote:
P.S. If anyone wants to continue this discussion at SciPy 2019, I will be there (on my own nickel! ;) ...
Thanks for the input Stephen, and looking forward to see you at SciPy'19! Ralf Steve
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Hi Ralf, and others, Sorry for the late notice, but there is are several funding opportunities in solar, including one for $350,000 to develop open source software to lower soft costs of solar. https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/#FoaId45eda43a-e826-4481-ae7a-cc6e8ed4fdae see topic 3.4 specifically in attached PDF - also note to view the recording the password is "*Setofoa2019"* it's about 30 minutes long. I know that this is a extremely niche, but as a few others have said, [the DOE] grants tend to be very specific, but perhaps we can creatively think of ways to channel funds to NumPy and SciPy. Also there is a cost share that is typically 20%, which would be a non-starter for volunteer projects. But here's an idea, perhaps partnering with a company, like mine (DNV GL) who is applying for the grant, and who uses NumPy,and could pay the cost share, and then we collaborate on something that is required to complete the project, which is contributed to NumPy (or SciPy) - but we would have to figure what we could align on. Seems like NumFOCUS, Quantsight, or some other company in the OSS space could figure out ways to help connect companies, OSS projects, and funding opportunities like these, where there's a possibility of alignment and mutual benefit? The full list of funding opportunities is here: https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/ Best Regards, Mark On Thu, May 2, 2019 at 11:52 PM Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
-- Mark Mikofski, PhD (2005) *Fiat Lux*
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5d8caeb7bf0e4b29cc75a5f5646b0db3.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Sorry, that last attachment was just a slide show of the topic 3 recording, here is the full funding opportunity announcement - letter with 200 word abstract are due May 7th On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 8:40 AM Mark Mikofski <mikofski@berkeley.edu> wrote:
-- Mark Mikofski, PhD (2005) *Fiat Lux*
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5f88830d19f9c83e2ddfd913496c5025.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 6:49 PM Mark Mikofski <mikofski@berkeley.edu> wrote:
Thanks for bringing up this opportunity Mark.
I think I prefer to pass on this one. Not only because abstracts are due in 3 days, but mainly because it's not the best fit. Perhaps we'll be forced to partner with others on application-specific grants and goals at some point. However it would be much better (as I've said before) to obtain funding for what we really want and need rather than channeling some some proportion of a grant meant for something different into development of our projects. My main goal at this point is getting clearer (also in written form) exactly what we need, then asking for exactly that. Format TBD - Chris' proposal of a BoF at SciPy may be a good forum to discuss. Cheers, Ralf
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5dde29b54a3f1b76b2541d0a4a9b232c.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Thu, May 2, 2019 at 11:51 PM Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
So will I (on NOAA's nickel, which I am grateful for) Maybe we should hold a BoF, or even something more formal, on Government support for SciPY Stack development? -CHB -- Christopher Barker, Ph.D. Oceanographer Emergency Response Division NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice 7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception Chris.Barker@noaa.gov
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5dde29b54a3f1b76b2541d0a4a9b232c.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 9:56 AM Stephen Waterbury <waterbug@pangalactic.us> wrote:
Sure, I would be interested to discuss, let's try to meet up there.
OK< that's two of us :-)
NumFocus folk: Should we take this off the list and talk about a BoF or something at SciPy? -CHB
-- Christopher Barker, Ph.D. Oceanographer Emergency Response Division NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice 7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception Chris.Barker@noaa.gov
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5f88830d19f9c83e2ddfd913496c5025.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 12:24 PM Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
Okay never mind, this is apparently happening already: https://hackmd.io/YbxTpC1ZT_aEapTqydmHCA. Please jump in there instead:) Ralf
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5dde29b54a3f1b76b2541d0a4a9b232c.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On May 4, 2019, at 9:00 AM, Ralf Gommers Okay never mind, this is apparently happening already: https://hackmd.io/YbxTpC1ZT_aEapTqydmHCA. Please jump in there instead:) Slightly different focus than I had in mind, but yes, it makes sense to join that effort. -CHB Ralf
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/851ff10fbb1363b7d6111ac60194cc1c.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Very much second Joe's recommendations - especially trying NASA - which has an amazing track record of open data also in astronomy (and a history of open source analysis tools, as well as the "Astrophysics Data System"). -- Marten
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5f88830d19f9c83e2ddfd913496c5025.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Thu, Apr 18, 2019 at 10:03 PM Joe Harrington <jh@physics.ucf.edu> wrote:
Thanks, very useful!
I agree. NASA is the agency that probably understands our importance and needs the best of any agency, and we have a lot of things to point to that are important to them.
Maybe that is indeed the way to go. The real goal is maintenance/evolution though, so it's a bit of a stretch. The strategy does work, see Dask & Pangeo, however it would be nicer not to have to spend 80-90% of a budget on things we can sell to get the 10-20% of funding for the things we think are most important to do ....
I've heard of these. Definitely worth looking into.
4. I mostly lurk here, since being more actively involved in the early days of numpy docs,
I remember, that's what got me involved in the first place - thanks again for that:) so maybe this one has been tried already, or is in
the works. My apologies if so.
No we haven't tried it, perhaps we should.
This sounds good. It's what I hope places like Quansight Labs (where I just started working) can help with. Same for Ursa Labs (focuses on Apache Arrow, may connect back to Pandas) and Quantstack (xtensor numpy-like C++ lib, a faster conda solver, ...). And with our roadmaps maturing and all projects now being under the NumFOCUS umbrella (except scikit-learn, which has its own nonprofit), this may become a way of the future. Jupyter is already further along this path. We still have some growing up to do though:)
:) Thanks for the feedback Joe! Cheers, Ralf
5. And, keep trying grant proposals to NSF!
--jh--
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5f88830d19f9c83e2ddfd913496c5025.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Sat, Apr 20, 2019 at 12:41 PM Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
It seems to be hard to find any information about these share-in-savings contracts. The closest thing I found is this: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/06/22/2018-13463/nasa-federal... It is called "Shared Savings" there, and was replaced last year by something called "Value Engineering Change Proposal". If anyone can comment on whether that's the same thing as Joe meant and whether this is worth following up on, that would be very helpful. Cheers, Ralf
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5dde29b54a3f1b76b2541d0a4a9b232c.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Sounds like this is a NASA specific thing, in which case, I guess someone at NASA would need to step up. I’m afraid I know no pythonistas at NASA. But I’ll poke around NOAA to see if there’s anything similar. -CHB On Apr 25, 2019, at 1:04 PM, Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote: On Sat, Apr 20, 2019 at 12:41 PM Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
It seems to be hard to find any information about these share-in-savings contracts. The closest thing I found is this: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2018/06/22/2018-13463/nasa-federal... It is called "Shared Savings" there, and was replaced last year by something called "Value Engineering Change Proposal". If anyone can comment on whether that's the same thing as Joe meant and whether this is worth following up on, that would be very helpful. Cheers, Ralf _______________________________________________ NumPy-Discussion mailing list NumPy-Discussion@python.org https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/numpy-discussion
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/182974f8b2562287a54415119be4535c.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
I am a NASA pythonista (for 20+ years ;), but you can now say you know yet another person at NASA who has no idea this even exists ... :) Not only do I not know of that, but I know of NASA policies that make it very difficult for NASA civil servants to contribute to open source projects -- quite hypocritical, given the amount of open source code that NASA (like all other large organizations) depends critically on, but it's a fact. Cheers, Steve Waterbury (CLEARLY **NOT** SPEAKING IN ANY OFFICIAL CAPACITY FOR NASA OR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT AS A WHOLE! Hence the personal email address. :) On 5/2/19 9:31 PM, Chris Barker - NOAA Federal wrote:
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5f88830d19f9c83e2ddfd913496c5025.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 3:49 AM Stephen Waterbury <waterbug@pangalactic.us> wrote:
P.S. If anyone wants to continue this discussion at SciPy 2019, I will be there (on my own nickel! ;) ...
Thanks for the input Stephen, and looking forward to see you at SciPy'19! Ralf Steve
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5d8caeb7bf0e4b29cc75a5f5646b0db3.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Hi Ralf, and others, Sorry for the late notice, but there is are several funding opportunities in solar, including one for $350,000 to develop open source software to lower soft costs of solar. https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/#FoaId45eda43a-e826-4481-ae7a-cc6e8ed4fdae see topic 3.4 specifically in attached PDF - also note to view the recording the password is "*Setofoa2019"* it's about 30 minutes long. I know that this is a extremely niche, but as a few others have said, [the DOE] grants tend to be very specific, but perhaps we can creatively think of ways to channel funds to NumPy and SciPy. Also there is a cost share that is typically 20%, which would be a non-starter for volunteer projects. But here's an idea, perhaps partnering with a company, like mine (DNV GL) who is applying for the grant, and who uses NumPy,and could pay the cost share, and then we collaborate on something that is required to complete the project, which is contributed to NumPy (or SciPy) - but we would have to figure what we could align on. Seems like NumFOCUS, Quantsight, or some other company in the OSS space could figure out ways to help connect companies, OSS projects, and funding opportunities like these, where there's a possibility of alignment and mutual benefit? The full list of funding opportunities is here: https://eere-exchange.energy.gov/ Best Regards, Mark On Thu, May 2, 2019 at 11:52 PM Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
-- Mark Mikofski, PhD (2005) *Fiat Lux*
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5d8caeb7bf0e4b29cc75a5f5646b0db3.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
Sorry, that last attachment was just a slide show of the topic 3 recording, here is the full funding opportunity announcement - letter with 200 word abstract are due May 7th On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 8:40 AM Mark Mikofski <mikofski@berkeley.edu> wrote:
-- Mark Mikofski, PhD (2005) *Fiat Lux*
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5f88830d19f9c83e2ddfd913496c5025.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 6:49 PM Mark Mikofski <mikofski@berkeley.edu> wrote:
Thanks for bringing up this opportunity Mark.
I think I prefer to pass on this one. Not only because abstracts are due in 3 days, but mainly because it's not the best fit. Perhaps we'll be forced to partner with others on application-specific grants and goals at some point. However it would be much better (as I've said before) to obtain funding for what we really want and need rather than channeling some some proportion of a grant meant for something different into development of our projects. My main goal at this point is getting clearer (also in written form) exactly what we need, then asking for exactly that. Format TBD - Chris' proposal of a BoF at SciPy may be a good forum to discuss. Cheers, Ralf
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5dde29b54a3f1b76b2541d0a4a9b232c.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Thu, May 2, 2019 at 11:51 PM Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
So will I (on NOAA's nickel, which I am grateful for) Maybe we should hold a BoF, or even something more formal, on Government support for SciPY Stack development? -CHB -- Christopher Barker, Ph.D. Oceanographer Emergency Response Division NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice 7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception Chris.Barker@noaa.gov
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5dde29b54a3f1b76b2541d0a4a9b232c.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Fri, May 3, 2019 at 9:56 AM Stephen Waterbury <waterbug@pangalactic.us> wrote:
Sure, I would be interested to discuss, let's try to meet up there.
OK< that's two of us :-)
NumFocus folk: Should we take this off the list and talk about a BoF or something at SciPy? -CHB
-- Christopher Barker, Ph.D. Oceanographer Emergency Response Division NOAA/NOS/OR&R (206) 526-6959 voice 7600 Sand Point Way NE (206) 526-6329 fax Seattle, WA 98115 (206) 526-6317 main reception Chris.Barker@noaa.gov
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5f88830d19f9c83e2ddfd913496c5025.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 12:24 PM Ralf Gommers <ralf.gommers@gmail.com> wrote:
Okay never mind, this is apparently happening already: https://hackmd.io/YbxTpC1ZT_aEapTqydmHCA. Please jump in there instead:) Ralf
![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/5dde29b54a3f1b76b2541d0a4a9b232c.jpg?s=120&d=mm&r=g)
On May 4, 2019, at 9:00 AM, Ralf Gommers Okay never mind, this is apparently happening already: https://hackmd.io/YbxTpC1ZT_aEapTqydmHCA. Please jump in there instead:) Slightly different focus than I had in mind, but yes, it makes sense to join that effort. -CHB Ralf
participants (7)
-
Chris Barker
-
Chris Barker - NOAA Federal
-
Joe Harrington
-
Mark Mikofski
-
Marten van Kerkwijk
-
Ralf Gommers
-
Stephen Waterbury