Government evaluation of software proposals

There’s a Canadian non-profit named CANARIE that’s arm’s-length from the government, but primarily supported by the feds. They fund Canadian technology intended to spur research and innovation.

They are currently running a program named the Research Portals and Platforms where they fund software projects that will serve as software infrastructure for a wide range of scientific disciplines.

I was browsing the documentation for the program and the guidelines to applicants, and one particular section caught my eye: “Why Research Software Program Proposals FAIL”. That sounded intriguing, so I read on.

Many proposals are not funded due to incomplete or unclear responses to key questions.

…

1. Write the proposal in language that someone without expertise or knowledge in software development or the research area can easily understand. The proposals will be reviewed by a committee … who may not have direct experience in software development.

Now, I realize that it may take a broad range of skills to evaluate the merits of a funding proposal. But how on Earth do they expect to be able to evaluate whether or not a software project is going to be successful, without the expertise of people who actually develop software?!

Having worked in the government, this obviously doesn’t come as a surprise to me. I’ve seen far too much terrible software that wasted thousands of dollars and will never see the light of day. But, come on. CANARIE is awarding millions of dollars and apparently aren’t including software developers in the evaluation of software proposals. That just seems like a bad idea.