Dr Michelle Barker [she/her]

Director, Research Software Alliance (ReSA)

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@ResearchSoft @Michelle1Barker www.researchsoft.org

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Notes: tinyurl.com/Roadmap-notes

Slides: tinyurl.com/Roadmap-slides

The People Roadmap: Mapping people-related initiatives in the research software community

Agenda

• ReSA aims and activities
• People Roadmap report
• Discussion on next steps: tinyurl.com/Roadmap-notes

Meeting etiquette

• ReSA Code of Conduct
• Mute your microphone when not speaking
• Raise your hand or use the chat for discussion

ReSA Vision:

Research software and those who develop and maintain it are recognised and valued as fundamental and vital to research worldwide.

ReSA Mission:

To bring research software communities together to collaborate on the advancement of the research software ecosystem.

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People

• Aim: improve social infrastructure to enhance individual skills, facilitate behaviour change and support communities
• Who: Researchers, Research Software Engineers, trainers, community leaders, decision-makers, policy makers

Infrastructure

• Aim: identify and support needed infrastructure, including software repositories and registries, tools that enable rewards and recognition, and standards and guidelines
• What:
• Physical: software repositories and registries
• Frameworks: standards, guidelines
• Structural: tools that enable rewards and recognition

Policy

• Aim: encourage and support software recognition steps by policy makers, funders, publishers and hiring institutions
• Where: international, national, disciplinary, organisational levels, etc

3 themes

History

Founded 2018

Now defining organisational and individual member structures

Twitter followers: 930

Newsletter subscribers: 195

A fiscally sponsored project of Code for Science & Society

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Sponsors

Partners

Director: Community Manager:

Michelle Barker Paula Andrea Marinez

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ReSA Steering Committee:

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• Chair: Daniel S Katz, Chief Scientist, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
• Juan Bicarregui, Head of the Data Division, Scientific Computing Department, Science and Technology Facilities Council, UK
• Neil Chue Hong, Director, Software Sustainability Institute, University of Edinburgh, UK
• Mark Leggott, Director of International Relations, Digital Research Alliance of Canada
• Eva Mendez, Associate Professor, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
• Chris Mentzel, Executive Director, Data Sciences, Stanford Data Science Initiative, Stanford University, USA
• Andrew Treloar, Director, Platforms and Software, Australian Research Data Commons, Australia
• Joris van Eijnatten, General Director, Netherlands eScience Center, Netherlands
• Lou Woodley, Director, Center for Scientific Collaboration and Community Engagement, UK

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Recent achievements

• Supported inclusion of research software in UNESCO and OECD recommendations
• Co-led development of research software sharing guidelines for policy makers, funder, publishers and research community in RDA COVID-19 Guidelines and Recommendations
• Blog identifying and analysing resources that demonstrate the importance of research software to research outcomes
• Software landscape analysis blog

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Ongoing activities

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• FAIR 4 Research Software
• FAIR 4 Research Software Roadmap
1. Metrics Working Group
2. Life Sciences Working Group (led by ELIXIR)
3. FAIR for Virtual Research Environments (VREs) Working Group
4. FAIR4RS skills and training curriculums Interest Group

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ReSA People Roadmap - 28 initiatives were profiled

• American Geophysical Union (AGU)
• Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC)
• CiteAs
• Community Health Analytics Open Source Software (CHAOSS)
• Code for Science & Society (CS&S)
• CodeMeta
• Code Refinery
• Council of International RSE Associations
• Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS)
• de-RSE
• German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute for Software Technology
• Department of Energy (DOE) Exascale Computing Project (ECP)
• ELIXIR
• European Research Infrastructure Software Engineers' Network (EURISE Network)

• European Open Science Cloud (EOSC)
• FORCE11 Software Citation Implementation Working Group (SCIWG)
• GitHub
• INnovative Training Enabled by a Research Software Engineering Community of Trainers (INTERSECT)
• Journal of Open Research Software (JORS)
• Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS)
• Netherlands eScience Center (NLeSC)
• New Zealand eScience Infrastructure (NeSI) Nordic-RSE
• Society of RSE
• Software Sustainability Institute (SSI)
• The Carpentries
• US Research Software Engineer Association (US-RSE)
• US Research Software Sustainability Institute (URSSI)

Aim: Identify opportunities for accelerating efforts

Adapted from Brian Nosek, 2019, Strategy for Culture Change

Profiled initiatives by people categories

Initiatives with a policy focus

At strategic level:

• Australian Research Data Commons
• Society of Research Software Engineering (RSE)
• International Council of RSE Associations

In programs/projects:

• American Geophysical Union
• de-RSE (Germany)
• FORCE11 Software Citation Implementation Working Group
• Netherlands eScience Center
• Journal of Open Research Software
• Journal of Open Source Software

Possible focus areas: Incentives

• Increase understanding of career recognition and metrics issues across a wider range of countries to consider cultural differences.
• Consider career recognition and metrics issues from alternative viewpoints - open source software functions as a community.
• Encourage emerging digital roles such as RSEs, data stewards, and data scientists to work together to gain recognition.
• Run competitions that highlight contributions to science through software.
• Identify next steps in creating RSE as a profession (Abbott, 1988, The System of Professions).

Initiatives with a skills and training focus

Mapping software: Exaptive Cognitive City

Collaborations with Software Sustainability Institute

Collaborations with The Carpentries

Priority areas

40%

Career paths and recognition

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25%

Valuing research software as a first class research object

Acknowledgements

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• Wellcome Trust for their support
• Project participants for their involvement
• ReSA Steering Committee for input

Next steps

You can:

• Read the People Roadmap Report
• Add your initiative/s - tinyurl.com/add-me
• Subscribe to ReSA newsletter

ReSA will:

• Incorporate Global South initiatives in community mapping - call for expressions of interest in undertaking 2 days paid work to map your region
• Create communities: Vive la differénce - research software engineers, a hybrid Lorentz workshop on diversity, equity and inclusion, April 2022
• Share information: Research Software Funders Forum

Questions?

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Discussion: tinyurl.com/Roadmap-notes

1. What outcomes can you, your organisation, or your initiative not achieve on your own?

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• Where do you, your organisation, or your initiative need to collaborate to influence broader processes?

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• What can you, your organisation, or your project contribute to help achieve these outcomes?

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• What are you, your organisation, or your project willing to put your energy and effort into?

Michelle Barker, Director - michelle@researchsoft.org�

Subscribe to ReSA newsletter

tinyurl.com/ReSA-news

Slides: tinyurl.com/Roadmap-slides

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