The Community Leadership Forum (CLF) is a forum of research software community leaders, committed to supporting research software, and those who develop it, as fundamental and vital to research. It brings together a representative group of decision makers, and influencers, to function as a community body with a shared vision, guiding the strategic direction, priorities, and values of our collective work. It draws on the diverse expertise and perspectives of our stakeholders to ensure that decision-making is participatory and inclusive.
The CLF provides a formal mechanism for members to consider how to collectively address common challenges to achieve the significant cultural change needed across the research sector globally. It aims to:
- Identify a shared vision for the research software community, and could create longer-term outcomes such as development of a decadal plan for research software (see CODATA’s for research data)
- Identify community priorities and ultimately assist in coordination to address these
- Represent the research software community in broader international discussions of relevance to open science and/or open source scientific software, such as OECD, UNESCO, COARA, etc.
Software has become an essential constituent of research and research software is starting to be seen as an equal partner of research data in key international policy documents such as UNESCO and the OECD. However, support and recognition of the importance of research software and the people who develop and maintain it, has failed to keep pace with the scale of use of research software in research.
Membership includes representatives from three main pathways:
- Each of ReSA’s stakeholder forums elects two members to the CLF.
- Targeted outreach by ReSA to identify and invite participation from missing voices, including research support infrastructures and university consortia (forums planned for 2026).
- An open nomination process to ensure representation of stakeholders not already engaged through ReSA forums and/or targeted outreach. Nominations must include evidence of support from the community the nominee seeks to represent.
For further information, please refer to the Terms of Reference or email ReSA: info@researchsoft.org.
