The economic value of scientific software

Academic institutions and their staff use, adapt and create software. We're thinking of business tools used to carry out their mission: teaching management (Moodle) or subject teaching support (such as Maxima for formal calculus), for example. We're talking about software resulting from research work, designed by a researcher or a team as part of a research project (funded by ANR, Europe, etc. or not) or as a research service for a third party. These projects can last for decades (such as the Coq program proof assistant project, or the GPAC multimedia content distribution platform).We discuss why this software is produced, with what resources, the interest that institutions derive from it, what we call the ”valorization” of software resulting from scientific research. The latter is multifaceted, as are the missions of scientific institutions: social value (contribution to the world heritage of knowledge), financial value (contracts), economic value (business creation), scientific value (publication), image value (visibility of the institution among target audiences: students, researchers, companies, prescribers).