The primary objective of this Expert Group is to address the challenges and opportunities around research software in the context of the EOSC framework.
It is now widely recognized that software is critical to the advancement of research: as a tool, as a research outcome and as a research object. In OA7 we will specifically target the research software created for research purposes or during the research process. Research communities have created numerous software applications that are essential to scientific research, as part of the research process, and are key components in the research activity.
To ensure research software curation, quality, preservation and adoption of best practices tailored to developers at all levels—from researchers who code to Research Software Engineers (RSEs)—we need to adopt approaches, practices and services that account for the varying complexity of research software and its development. Importantly, credit and recognition for both developers and software are essential components of a strategy to promote sustainable software practices.
The Expert Group aims to promote all aspects of research software, including metadata, quality, preservation, registries, reproducibility and recognition. Building on prior work within EOSC—especially the EOSC Infrastructures for Quality Research Software Task Force and the EOSC Scholarly Infrastructures for Research Software report under the Architecture working group—the group will attempt to tackle the different facets of fostering Open Science culture for research software to promote it to a first-class citizen in science.
To maximize the potential, the group will closely work with global initiatives and efforts on this domain, such as the SciCodes consortium, the Research Data Alliance’s FAIR4RS working group and Software Source Code activities, and the Research Software Alliance (ReSA).
Coordinators
