Cycle 5 funding wrap-up & closing thoughts
Adrian Price-Whelan
Dear Astropy Community,
Now that the funding request (FR) Cycle 5 allocation is complete, we wanted to share a brief update and some ideas for improving the process going forward. This cycle was run jointly by the Strategic Planning and Organizing Committee (SPOC) and the Finance Committee.
Amount Allocated: $270,041.50 to be spent in 2026
What Went Well
First off, thank you! The community truly stepped up and was completely engaged in the whole process.
When we asked for budgets to be reconsidered, the responses were thoughtful and considerate. That flexibility made a meaningful difference and let us distribute the funding fairly through the community.
We received enough strong proposals that we had to say no to good ideas.
Focusing on a single year of funding made the process much simpler. It allowed us to compare proposals more directly and make clearer decisions.
The public discussion process went very well. Conversations were civil, substantive, and grounded in shared goals. The feedback was useful and thoughtful. We appreciate your engagement!
Using the Astropy Roadmap as a guiding framework helped anchor decisions in long-term strategy rather than short-term urgency.
What Needs Improvement
While we feel this process went fairly smoothly, we identified a number of potential ways that the process can be streamlined and improved for the benefit of the Project in future cycles.
Treating software development, leadership, and community/education efforts as if they were directly comparable and trying to divide the funds from the same pool for each of these very different proposals created structural tension. These categories often have different goals, timelines, and impact profiles. That meant the allocations between these categories were lop-sided despite them all being on the roadmap and part of the Project’s long-term strategy.
It is not clear if contributors should submit multiple FRs (one per project) or combine related efforts into a single request - this led to some confusion both when making selection and when writing FRs.
Similarly, identifying and grouping related projects was sometimes challenging.
While thinking in one-year increments was helpful for decision-making, it was harder for many to frame multi-year visions or long-term sustainability plans within that structure.
While we had hoped to provide individualized, private feedback, we simply do not have the bandwidth to provide it this cycle and we are looking for ways to improve this. Please feel free to reach out to your Finance Committee point of contact if you have questions about your proposal and how to improve for the next funding cycle.
We need better mechanisms to identify and fund gaps in the submitted FRs for high priority roadmap items that were not covered by FRs.
Finally, we need better mechanisms to align community efforts with the roadmap for contributors who do not participate directly in the funding request process. (For example, people who contribute to Astropy as part of their functional work.) Strategic alignment should not depend solely on being funded by the Project.
Specific links between amount of effort on FRs and amount of progress on roadmap items could be improved. While everyone tried, these connections could be made more clear, concrete, and possibly even measurable.
Looking Ahead
We plan to use these ideas to inform adjustments to the next funding cycle; as always we welcome additional feedback on both structure and process, please feel free to email the SPOC directly at strategic...@astropy.org or post a Slack comment in #project.
Thank you!
Strategic Planning and Finance Committees