v2026.1CASRAI Dictionary 1,610 entries across 24 domains · CC-BY 4.01,610 entries · CC-BY 4.0

Dictionary termTrack EStablev2026.2

Post-project sustainability

The planning and provision for ongoing maintenance, hosting, support, or further development of project outputs (software, datasets, networks, services, communities) after the funded project has formally ended.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 21 May 2026

Ask about Post-project sustainability

Answers are drawn from this dictionary entry and the rest of the CASRAI corpus, with a link to every source.

Answers are AI-generated from CASRAI’s own published pages and can be wrong, so check the linked sources before relying on one; your question is logged without personal data — never sold, never used to train a third-party model — to show us what CASRAI is missing, so please do not type personal or confidential details. How we use this

Examples

Worked examples

Is an instance
A consortium documents that its open-source software will be maintained for at least 3 years post-project by a designated partner, with infrastructure funded from institutional commitment.
Is an instance
A research data centre commits to host the project's dataset for at least 10 years with a published preservation policy.

Counter-examples

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance
A short-lived demo website with no maintenance plan is the opposite of sustainability.
Not an instance
Treating outputs as disposable at project end shows no sustainability planning.

Editorial commentary

Sustainability planning is increasingly required by funders (Horizon Europe sustainability plans, NIH data-management plans, UKRI exploitation plans). It addresses questions such as: who will maintain the software once the grant ends; how will the dataset remain accessible in five years; will the community of practice continue to meet; will there be follow-on funding; what is the route to commercial sustainability; will outputs be transferred to a permanent host (institution, society, open-source foundation). Lack of sustainability planning is a long-running critique of project-funded research.

References

European Commission Horizon Europe Sustainability Plans guidance; NIH Data Management and Sharing Policy.

Also known as

Sustainability plan · Post-grant sustainability · Long-term sustainability (project)

Machine-readable encodings

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="Post-project sustainability"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/post-project-sustainability" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/post-project-sustainability",
  "name": "Post-project sustainability",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/post-project-sustainability",
  "description": "The planning and provision for ongoing maintenance, hosting, support, or further development of project outputs (software, datasets, networks, services, communities) after the funded project has formally ended.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/research-lifecycle#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/post-project-sustainability",
  "sameAs": [
    "Sustainability plan",
    "Post-grant sustainability",
    "Long-term sustainability (project)"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-05-21T02:23:00",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}