Hi all,
Last week I had the opportunity to attend the 2024 Australian Museum Eureka Prizes ceremony, representing the MRtrix3 project as a finalist in the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) Eureka Prize for Excellence in Research Software. You can see our 30-second summary video and those of the other finalists here.
Congratulations to Prof Gordon Smyth and the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute on receiving the award for their limma software, which has reportedly been used in over 70,000 scientific publications. It was very interesting to speak with Gordon about the difficulties associated with developing, maintaining and supporting a substantial piece of research software in conjunction with a conventional research career; I hope to write more about this particular topic in the near future.
Further thanks to:
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The ARDC for their creation of this award. They have been at the forefront of recognition of the importance of research software and the need for greater resources for such, including creation of their national agenda for research software.
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The Australian National Imaging Facility (NIF), both for their ongoing support for my own position and for their assistance in creation of our finalist promotional video. They also wrote a news article on MRtrix3 to coincide with this award.
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All contributors to the software past and present who have helped get the software from a one-man band to the substantial mature package that it is now.
(In case you’ve never spotted it, the bottom of the MRtrix website front page is populated with the list of all contributors) -
The various funding sources that have supported the project; much of the core development of the software occurred under program grants provided by the Australian government’s National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).
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Those special individuals who provided me with external supporting material necessary to put together the nomination.
Cheers
Rob
