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string: '{"id":"https://doi.org/10.54900/zwm7q-vet94","uuid":"954f8138-0ecd-4090-87c5-cef1297f1470","url":"https://upstream.force11.org/the-research-software-alliance-resa/","title":"The
Research Software Alliance (ReSA)","summary":"Research software is a key part
of most research today. As University of Manchester Professor Carole Goble
has said, \"software is the ubiquitous instrument of science.\" Creating and
maintaining research software is a human effort, and as Yanina Bellina, rOpenSci
Community Manager, has said, \"the work of the people who develop and maintain
research software is often hidden and needs to be recognized.\"Studies of
researchers at leading UK universities [1] and of postdoctoral researchers
in the US...","date_published":"2023-04-18T10:36:52Z","date_modified":"2023-04-18T10:36:52Z","authors":[{"url":"https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5934-7525","name":"Daniel
S. Katz"},{"url":null,"name":"Michelle Barker"}],"image":"https://upstream.force11.org/content/images/2023/04/resa-logo-7.png","content_html":"
Research software is a key part of most research today. As University of
Manchester Professor Carole Goble has said, \"software is the ubiquitous instrument
of science.\" Creating and maintaining research software is a human effort,
and as Yanina Bellina, rOpenSci Community Manager, has said, \"the work of
the people who develop and maintain research software is often hidden and
needs to be recognized.\"
Studies of researchers at leading UK universities
[1] and
of postdoctoral researchers in the US [2]
have found that over 90% use research software, over 65% see research software
as fundamental to their research, and 25-55% develop software as part of the
research.
Research software, being ubiquitous, is difficult to concisely
define. One recent attempt [3]
says that research software:
Once
research software is developed, however, users can find bugs, users can want
new features, and the underlying hardware and software on which the software
is built (e.g., libraries, OS) can change. The research software needs to
be manually maintained in response to these issues. In other words, research
software is not a one-time investment, but requires ongoing maintenance.
Research
software sustainability can be defined as occurring when the resources (people,
funding, etc.) to enable maintenance are gathered and applied.
This
is different from challenges for publications and datasets because while research
software can similarly be a research result and research product, it has properties
that differ from papers and datasets, and needs different policies and funding
models.
ReSA''s
vision is that research software and those who develop and maintain it are
recognised and valued as fundamental and vital to research worldwide, while
its mission is to advance the research software ecosystem by collaborating
with key influencers and decision makers.
ReSA is a fiscally-sponsored
project of Code for Science &
Society, has part time staff
members who include a Director, Dr Michelle Barker, and Community Managers
located in Africa, Asia, Australia and Canada, and is led by a steering
committee chaired by Daniel S. Katz, Chief Scientist at NCSA at the University
of Illinois Urbana Champaign. ReSA has received support totalling USD$663,500
in cash, and USD$344,000 (details are publicly
available) as in-kind contributions from its sponsors,
Founding Members,
and Organisational Members.
Activities
ReSA accomplishes work primarily through
forums and task forces.
The ReSA Funders Forum, a collaboration of 30+ research software
funding organisations, started in 2022. The organisations represented are
currently about 2/3 government, 1/4 philanthropic, and 1/12 industry. Geographically,
41% are in Europe, 34% in North America, 17% in Australasia, and 4% each in
African and South America.
The Funders Forum provides a formal mechanism
for funders to share funding practices, address research software community
challenges, facilitate networks and collaboration, and consider how to achieve
long-term sustainability for research software. It meets monthly, with each
meeting repeating twice in a day to allow those in different time zones to
participate each time, and shifting in time from month to month to allow different
sets of participants to form each time. Each meeting includes short presentations
from funders on their new activities, and a discussion topic that is either
led by ReSA or by a funder, such as on diversity, equity, and inclusion in
research software, open source program offices, collaboration mechanisms,
and landscape analysis. The Funder Forums also has working groups in which
more focused activities can occur, such as planning for a multi-organisational
funding call and defining policies around FAIR for research software.
Discussions
in the ReSA steering committee and the funders forum led ReSA and the Netherlands
eScience Center to co-convene the “International
Funders Workshop: The Future of Research Software” in Amsterdam in November
2022, with representation from 45 funding organisations (those who provide
monetary and/or in-kind support to research software and/or the people who
develop and maintain it).
In this workshop, attendees discussed
a draft of the Amsterdam Declaration on Funding Research Software Sustainability
[4], which continues
to be open for consultation.
ReSA hosts an occasional online community forum for the global
research software community, as an opportunity for participants to meet and
share information. Each call features a short talk and follow-up discussion,
with the aim of facilitating community consideration about what’s needed next
to address particular issues. The Community Forum is open to everyone. Meetings
occur at alternating times to maximise attendance by participants in different
time zones. Meeting topics have included:
Outcomes of Vive la différence
- research software engineers [5],
a workshop that considered how to reframe research software engineering to
place diversity, equity and inclusion as a central organising principle
The
Research Software Roadmap
Aligning publisher policies for sharing
code
The Research Software Community in the Global South [6]
Evidence for the importance of research software (completed,
2020): identified and analysed resources [7]
that demonstrate the importance of research software to research outcomes,
to provide information for sharing with key influencers.
Software
sections of RDA COVID-19 Guidelines and Recommendations for policy makers,
funders and the research community (completed, 2020) [8]:
helping COVID-19 stakeholders follow best practices to maximise the efficiency
of their work, and to act as a blueprint for future emergencies.
FAIR
for research software (completed, 2022): Jointly with FORCE11 and RDA, developed
the FAIR for research software (FAIR4RS) principles [9]
FAIR
4 Research Software Roadmap (completed, 2022) [10]:
Identified key stakeholders in areas arising from the application of the FAIR
principles to research software, to guide strategic planning and investment.
Consultation with key stakeholders enabled mapping of existing projects that
apply some of the elements of the FAIR principles to research software into
a longer-term framework to improve strategic alignment and potential collaborators/leads
for parts of the Roadmap.
Software landscape analysis (completed,
2022): Mapping the international research software community landscape
Code
availability (active): Jointly with FORCE11, working towards greater alignment
on policy and other related actions for code (the code associated with the
findings of an article) being made available alongside (or prior to) the publication
of the article.
Research institution policies to support research
software (starting): is building a collection
of institutional policies that support research software and the people
who develop and maintain it, and work to better share them with interested
stakeholders.
In addition, ReSA participates in ad hoc activities
that support its mission, such as sharing diversity, equity, and inclusion
best practices at the 2022 Vive la difference - research software engineers
hybrid workshop [5].
Participate
ReSA
provides freely available resources
that anyone can use to raise awareness of the importance of research software
and a database
or research software funding opportunities.
Anyone can sign up to
receive updates on ReSA through its regular newsletter,
provide information on new
funding calls to our database,
join task forces
focused on specific activities, and join the ReSA Slack
to share what is happening in their community.
Anyone who represents
a funding organisation and wants to interact with other funders, can join
the (free) Research
Software Funders Forum.
Finally, ReSA is always looking for organisations
who want to become recognised as organisational
members in order to financially support its work.
Nangia
U, Katz DS. Track 1 Paper: Surveying the U.S. National Postdoctoral Association
Regarding Software Use and Training in Research. Published online August 30,
2017. doi:10.6084/m9.figshare.5328442.v3
Nieuwpoort
R van, Katz DS. Defining the roles of research software. Upstream.
Published online March 14, 2023. doi:10.54900/9akm9y5-5ject5y
Barker
M, Hong NPC, Eijnatten J van, Katz DS. Amsterdam Declaration on Funding Research
Software Sustainability. Published online March 16, 2023. doi:10.5281/zenodo.7740084
Barker
M, Leung MA, Martinez PA, et al. Report on Vive La Différence - Research
Software Engineers. Zenodo; 2022. doi:10.5281/zenodo.6859709
Martinez
PA. The Research Software Community Landscape in the Global South. Published
online October 10, 2022. doi:10.5281/zenodo.7179892
Barker
M, Katz DS, Gonzalez-Beltran A. Evidence for the Importance of Research
Software. Zenodo; 2020. doi:10.5281/zenodo.3884311
Research
Data Alliance. Final release: COVID-19 guidelines. Published online 2020.
doi:10.15497/RDA00052
Chue
Hong NP, Katz DS, Barker M, et al. FAIR Principles for Research Software (FAIR4RS
Principles). Published online 2021. doi:10.15497/RDA00068
Barker,
Michelle. FAIR4RS Roadmap Report. Published online February 20, 2022. doi:10.5281/ZENODO.6239373
Katz
DS, Barker M, Martinez PA, Anzt H, Gonzalez-Beltran A, Bakker T. The Research
Software Alliance (ReSA) and the community landscape. Published online March
11, 2020. doi:10.5281/ZENODO.3699950