The Software Productivity, Sustainability, and Quality (SPSQ) Community of Practice (COP) coordinates Federal R&D to achieve orders-of-magnitude reduction in software defects and the time and cost of developing and sustaining software. The U.S. Government and the national economy depend on increasingly complex software; improved software development technology is essential to U.S. innovation, to leadership in emerging technologies, and to security and prosperity. The SPSQ COP reports investments to the SPSQ Program Component Area.
Overview
The SPSQ Interagency Working Group (IWG) was formed in 1991 to coordinate Federal SPSQ R&D across 19 participating agencies to achieve orders-of-magnitude reduction in software defects and the time and cost of developing and sustaining software. As of May 2024, SPSQ continues to meet as a COP to gather information from software experts to ensure that government investment in SPSQ R&D results in the software development technology that is essential to U.S. innovation, emerging technology leadership, security, and prosperity.
Strategic Priorities
- Advance timely, affordable development and sustainment of low-defect, low-vulnerability software through transformative research in design, production and evolution, verification, operation, utilization, and evaluation of computer software.
- Advance software productivity, sustainability, and quality in high-priority areas such as AI, computational science and engineering, cybersecurity, and future software-defined networking.
- Develop the current and future SPSQ workforce by supporting STEM education and training; by supplying and sustaining the necessary resources such as software libraries, tools, and platforms to support teaching and research; and by advancing software proficiency and development capabilities in government organizations and government-led projects.
Co-Chairs
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Ram D. Sriram Chief of the Software and Systems Division Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) |
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Sol Greenspan Program Director Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF) Computing & Information Science and Engineering (CISE) U.S. National Science Foundation |
Technical Coordinator
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Melissa Cornelius |
Activities
- U.S. Leadership in Software Engineering & AI Engineering: Critical Needs & Priorities Workshop Report, September 27, 2024
- U.S. Leadership in Software Engineering & Al Engineering: Critical Needs & Priorities Workshop-Executive Summary, Software Engineering Institute (SEI), Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program, National Science Foundation. October 3, 2023.
- U.S. Leadership in Software Engineering & AI Engineering Workshop, June 20-21, 2023.
- Federal Register Notice: 88 FR 33653, “Notice of Workshop on U.S. Leadership in Software Engineering & Artificial Intelligence Engineering: Critical Needs & Priorities”, May 24, 2023.
- Software in the Era of Extreme Heterogeneity workshop in collaboration with the High-End Computing (HEC) IWG. September 22 – 24, 2020.
Publications
- Software in the Era of Extreme Heterogeneity Workshop Report, High End Computing Interagency Working Group; Software Productivity, Sustainability, and Quality Interagency Working Group. June 2022.