PhD Project in Managing Technical Debt in Research Software

Researchers who write code develop software where the end goal of the activity is not actually the software itself, but rather a tangible research output (e.g., a journal article, a conference paper etc.). If the software is made well, the software then also becomes a tangible research output, eligible for a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), publication and reuse to underpin other research [1]. Although researchers-who-write-code have evolved into Research Software Engineers (RSEs), the standard practice of employing publications to assess an individual’s academic performance has remain unchanged. This often means that RSEs must write software and also publish papers to prove their value under this credit system [2]. With the continued focus on assessing papers, and not assessing the software, the quality of the underlying software can be compromised- reducing its maintainability and sustainability and thus increasing its technical debt.

Technical debt (TD) has become a common metaphor to represent shortcuts taken for the sake of speed in the development of software. Such shortcuts often lead to a decline in the internal quality of the resultant research software [3]. This PhD project will investigate the presence of technical debt within software written for research, where pressure for rapid results and limited resources can often lead to “quick fixes” over long-term solutions.

[1] D. Carlin, A. Rainer, and D. Wilson, ‘Where is all the research software? An analysis of software in UK academic repositories’, PeerJ Comput Sci, vol. 9, p. e1546, Nov. 2023, doi: 10.7717/peerj-cs.1546.
[2] V. Sochat. CiteLang: Modeling the Research Software Ecosystem. Journal of Open Source Software, 7(77), 4458, 2022. doi:10.21105/joss.04458
[3] P. C. Avgeriou et al., ‘An Overview and Comparison of Technical Debt Measurement Tools’, IEEE Softw, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 61–71, May 2021, doi: 10.1109/MS.2020.3024958.

Project Description:

Aims:
• Investigate the concept and presence of technical debt within research software, where pressure for rapid publishable research results, together with limited time, effort and resources, can often lead to short-term “quick fixes” at the expense of long-term high-quality software.
• Propose and implement a framework for measuring, tracking, and managing technical debt in research software. Such a framework may be adapted from frameworks for technical debt in commercial software that focus on code quality, testing, and refactoring.

Objectives:
• Investigate the unique constraints and motivators for research—such as short funding cycles, rapid prototyping for publication deadlines, or limited engineering expertise among researchers—that lead to technical debt in research software.
• Investigate the impact of technical debt on research outcomes
• Examine how technical debt in research code affects reproducibility, accuracy, and reliability of scientific results.

Funding Information

To be eligible for consideration for a Home DfE or EPSRC Studentship (covering tuition fees and maintenance stipend of approx. £19,237 per annum), a candidate must satisfy all the eligibility criteria based on nationality, residency and academic qualifications.

To be classed as a Home student, candidates must meet the following criteria and the associated residency requirements:

• Be a UK National,
or • Have settled status,
or • Have pre-settled status,
or • Have indefinite leave to remain or enter the UK.

Candidates from ROI may also qualify for Home student funding.

Previous PhD study MAY make you ineligible to be considered for funding.

Please note that other terms and conditions also apply.

Please note that any available PhD studentships will be allocated on a competitive basis across a number of projects currently being advertised by the School.

A small number of international awards will be available for allocation across the School. An international award is not guaranteed to be available for this project, and competition across the School for these awards will be highly competitive.

Academic Requirements:

The minimum academic requirement for admission is normally an Upper Second Class Honours degree from a UK or ROI Higher Education provider in a relevant discipline, or an equivalent qualification acceptable to the University.

Entrance requirements

Graduate
The minimum academic requirement for admission to a research degree programme is normally an Upper Second Class Honours degree from a UK or ROI HE provider, or an equivalent qualification acceptable to the University. Further information can be obtained by contacting the School.

International Students

For information on international qualification equivalents, please check the specific information for your country.

English Language Requirements

Evidence of an IELTS* score of 6.0, with not less than 5.5 in any component or equivalent qualification acceptable to the University is required (*taken within the last 2 years).

International students wishing to apply to Queen’s University Belfast (and for whom English is not their first language), must be able to demonstrate their proficiency in English in order to benefit fully from their course of study or research. Non-EEA nationals must also satisfy UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) immigration requirements for English language for visa purposes.

For more information on English Language requirements for EEA and non-EEA nationals see: www.qub.ac.uk/EnglishLanguageReqs.