The Opportunities and Challenges of Building OSPOs at Research Institutions and Across University Systems

  • Date: October 1, 2025
  • Time: 11:00 AM America/New_York
  • Speaker:

    Stephanie Lieggi is the Executive Director of the Center for Research in Open Source Software (CROSS) at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she has worked since 2016. She leads initiatives that support academic-based open source projects and has established mentorship programs like the Open Source Research Experience (OSRE). In 2022, Stephanie took on the additional role of leading UCSC's Open Source Program Office (OSPO), supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Her efforts have been instrumental in creating a system-wide network of OSPOs across the University of California. 
     

    Angela Newell is the Executive Director of Innovation in the Office of the Vice President and Chief Information Officer, as well as the Director of the Open Source Program Office at The University of Texas at Austin. Angela's role involves managing people and projects to support innovation and overseeing an Innovation Lab that connects students with technology careers. She has contributed significantly to open source projects and research, supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Angela’s academic contributions include teaching at the McCombs School of Business and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. She holds a doctorate from The University of Texas at Austin and a Master of Science in Public Policy and Information Systems Management from Carnegie Mellon University.
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Join Apereo Board Members Stephanie Lieggi and Angela Newell for, “The Opportunities and Challenges of Building OSPOs at Research Institutions and Across University Systems.”

Public universities, particularly those that are part of large state systems, can be a source of amazing innovation and discovery. Open source and open scholarship is an important conduit for ensuring that this innovation translates to broader technical communities and promotes wide economic and societal growth. An increasing number of campuses and research institutions are supporting creation of open source program offices (OSPOs) as a way to increase that translation and meet institutional goals of research, teaching and social impact.  As with OSPOs in industry, academic OSPOs aim to be a center of gravity for the open source work of their organizations. Expanding upon the work done on individual campuses, large university systems are also seeing the benefit of coordinating and leveraging efforts to benefit the wider system. In this presentation, Stephanie Lieggi (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Angela Newell (University of Texas, Austin) will discuss their experience in building both local and system-wide OSPO efforts.   

Any special outcomes or objectives:

The presenters will explore the challenges and opportunities of working within a system-wide OSPO network and discuss the outlook for sustainability in the long term. 

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