Sovereign Tech Fund Invests $450k in R to Enhance Sustainability and Security (r-consortium.org)

The R Foundation has received a $450,000 (€392,000) grant from the Sovereign Tech Fund to modernize R’s core infrastructure, improve long‑term maintainability, and harden software supply‑chain security. Led by the R Core Team, the 18‑month project funds work to replace legacy code, tidy up third‑party components, and build tooling and documentation that make R easier to port, maintain and extend—examples include preparing for Windows ARM and improving developer onboarding. The effort is framed as proactive stewardship: R already signs macOS/Windows binaries, but package signing, provenance verification, and reproducible distribution practices are next priorities to ensure trust in the ecosystem. Technically, the grant backs targeted engineering (Tomas Kalibera will lead much of the interpreter and build‑system work), expanded testing (including containerized checks for reproducibility), and infrastructure for signing sources/binaries. That combination reduces attack surface from unmaintained code, prepares R for possible future platform/security requirements, and lowers barriers for contributors. The community is invited to help with bug triage, testing, documentation and feature feedback so these foundations persist beyond the project’s timeline—strengthening R as critical digital public infrastructure for research, government and industry.