Research Software Funders Forum
The Research Software Funders Forum is a collaboration of funding organisations committed to supporting research software, and those who develop it, as fundamental and vital to research. It provides a formal mechanism for funders to share practices and consider how to address common challenges to achieve the significant cultural change needed across the research sector globally. For further information, please refer to the Terms of Reference and this ReSA blog post: Funder community focuses on crucial role of research software
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.
Funders can play a key role in changing practices in the research sector, and an increasing number of funders are now supporting the advancement of research software. Increased focus on research software can provide societal benefits that include accelerating innovation, reducing information-sharing gaps, encouraging innovation, and promoting reproducibility.
The Research Software Funders Forum aims to provide a formal mechanism to increase:
Membership is open to any initiative that funds research software. To join please contact info@researchsoft.org.
The Amsterdam Declaration on Funding Research Software Sustainability (ADORE.software) represents a first step to formalise, on a global level, the basic principles and recommendations related to funding the sustainability of research software, including the people needed to achieve this goal. ADORE.software’s complementary toolkit provides examples of programs, policies, and resources for each of the Declaration’s recommendations in the four areas of research software practice, research software ecosystem, research software personnel, and research software ethics.
Since 2022, the Funders Forum has convened annual global gatherings of research software funders.
(2022) International Funders Workshop: The Future of Research Software. The Netherlands eScience Center and ReSA co-hosted this workshop in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. See the blog post and report. Prior to the workshop, the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) and ReSA co-hosted a workshop on research software visibility. Slides from the pre-workshop event are available via ReSA’s Zenodo community.
(2023) International Research Software Funders Workshop - Investing in People: Anticipating the Future of Research Software. The Digital Research Alliance of Canada and ReSA co-hosted this workshop in Montreal, Canada, and online. See the blog post and report. Prior to this workshop, ReSA delivered a half-day session on How to Explicitly Support Research Software as Part of Your Funding Program. There was also a half-day session on CiteSoftware, led by a group of stakeholders aiming to drive the adoption of a common research software preservation and citation guidance resource for the research community.
(2024) International Research Software Funders Workshop: Towards a monitoring framework to benchmark the ADORE.software recommendations and improve the sustainability of research software. The SciLifeLab Data Centre and ReSA are co-hosting this workshop in Uppsala, Sweden, and online.
See also ReSA’s Research Software Funding Opportunities to find funding opportunities or contribute information on new calls.