About The University of Texas Open Source Program Office (UT-OSPO)

The University of Texas Open Source Program Office (UT-OSPO) is the center for open source activity, connection, training, and support to enable open source practices as a key part of the university mission. With financial support from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, this project is led by personnel from UT Austin’s central IT services, Libraries, iSchool, and TACC in order to form an umbrella organization that is more than the sum of its pieces.

The UT-OSPO coordinates a shared open infrastructure for software development, establishing a central hub for open source support that enables the university to leverage and formalize the pre-existing infrastructure on campus, unify and expand the work already being done in this space, create additional opportunities for engagement among faculty and students, and foster interdisciplinary connections across departments and units.

This infrastructure promotes more reproducible and open research through the development of an ecosystem of researchers engaging and growing open source skills and practice through a pathway of participation.

Since 2020, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has been helping universities establish OSPOs as a strategy to institutionalize support for open source software in research and beyond. To date, Sloan has approved grants to support twelve university OSPOs, and the UT Austin OSPO was part of the latest cohort.