The U.S. National Science Foundation is an independent federal agency that supports science and engineering in all 50 states and U.S. territories. NSF was established in 1950 by Congress to promote the progress of science, advance the national health, prosperity and welfare, and secure the national defense.
The Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) program focuses on leveraging open-source development for addressing significant national and societal issues. It supports the formation of new Open-Source Ecosystems (OSE) managing organizations around existing open-source products or product classes, aiming for a broader, more diverse adoption and innovation. The program fosters distributed, community-driven development and aims to enhance the community of researchers and innovators around OSE efforts, enabling secure, impactful open-source technologies across various STEM fields. It involves two phases: Phase I for scoping and planning, targeting open-source research products with initial user engagement but limited external content development; and Phase II for establishing and expanding an OSE with a plan for community engagement, governance, and technology deployment.