This month in research software - community news

Recognition of research software:

• International Funders Workshop: The Future of Research Software: Aims to set the future agenda for national and international funders to support sustainable research software, 8-9 Nov in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. More than 40 organisations have already committed to attending this event hosted by ReSA and the Netherlands eScience Center. For information on attending this invitation-only event contact events@esciencecenter.nl.

• EAGER: Characterising Research Software from NSF Awards is a new NSF-funded project with goals to: 1) understand what factors influence software sustainability by gathering data from grant-funded research projects 2) describe current models of sustainability planning and suggest potential new models that could increase the likelihood of achieving long-term software sustainability 3) develop emergent methods to evaluate research software sustainability. This research has three intended impacts: 1) to provide a proof of concept for large-scale analysis of research software sustainability using a mixed-methods approach 2) modify existing standardised metrics of software health so that they can be used to evaluate the sustainability of research software 3) create an initial set of sustainability models that researchers can use to better plan research software projects, funders can use to make better award decisions, and institutions can use to better allocate internal resources.

• Expanding Pathways for Career Research Scientists in Academia, by Thompson and Chapin, highlights challenges faced by research career scientists in choosing career pathways (including as research software engineers), and calls for US national funders to launch immediately tractable efforts to begin making headway in addressing the problem.

• Digital Research Alliance of Canada 2021-22 Annual Report: Learn more about their work in support of research software, advanced research computing, and research data management.

• In Canada the Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy includes code deposit as a requirement, in addition to data and other outputs; and that grantees have a publicly accessible strategy to support policy around research data/software management per the Policy.

Funding opportunities: 

• Software Sustainability Institute Fellowship Programme is now open, providing funding for UK and international individuals who want to improve how research software is done in their domains, fields and/or areas of work. Closes 3 Oct.

• Better Scientific Software Fellowship Program is open to US-based applicants, providing recognition and funding to leaders and advocates of high-quality scientific software. Closes 30 Sept.

• Netherlands eScience Center: Small-Scale Initiatives Digital Approaches to the Humanities aims to help Dutch researchers in the Humanities who require research software or digital tooling to answer their research problem. Closes 14 Oct.

• Open Scholarship Awards sponsored by the Canadian Social Knowledge Institute: These awards are intended to acknowledge and celebrate exemplary open scholarship. Closes 14 Oct.

Research Software Community Forum - monthly update

During our August Research Software Community Forum, we discussed new funding calls, recent articles, and opportunities to contribute to the global research software community. We heard about the findings from a community paper on Nine best practices for research software registries and repositories. For further information and the community’s next steps, visit SciCodes, a consortium of scientific software registries and repositories.

We also learned about an exciting opportunity from Falling Walls Lab, a global interdisciplinary pitch competition for students and early-career professionals. Throughout the year, Falling Walls Lab open calls give international participants an opportunity to deliver a short pitch about their work; winners of the preliminary rounds are invited to Berlin for the Falling Walls Science Summit, held on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Our monthly call featured an informative talk on Canada’s research software landscape. Dr. Qian Zhang, Senior Analyst, Research Software, at the Digital Research Alliance of Canada (the Alliance) discussed key challenges and opportunities, highlighting why a national policy framework that is compatible with global practice is required to guide the development of research software in Canada. The Alliance plans to create a formal and permanent research software advisory committee, which will convene Canadian and international representatives.

Many thanks to everyone who joined the call and shared news from the research software ecosystem!

September Community Forum 

This month, Dr. Tom Honeyman, Software Program Manager for the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC), will speak about aligning publisher policies for sharing code.  Join the call on 14 September at 23:00 UTC (in your time zone). Zoom link. Passcode: 446688. Download a calendar invite or subscribe to ReSA’s Community Forum mailing list for invites and updates.

ReSA Slack

Our community uses Slack to share news, resources, and opportunities. If you’re interested in connecting with others in the global research software community, join the ReSA Slack here.