The combined ReSA and Research Data Alliance (RDA) Policies in Research Organisations for Research Software (PRO4RS) Working Group built on the ReSA task force to collect institutional policies for further dissemination as examples and encouragement to increase the value of research software assets worldwide.
Until mid-2026, this Working Group collected policies around research software (or open source software) that govern the creation, maintenance, acquisition, use, distribution and management of software within their environment, as well as to recognise such work. Software policies might cover multiple aspects of management to ensure legal, ethical, and secure use of software, as well as the protection of intellectual property rights, and can discuss how software work is used in hiring, evaluation, and promotion. Sometimes research software is integrated into other policies, such as those focused on open science or research data. Useful resources on policies also include 1) The final report of the PRO4RS Working Group, and the associated publication, Institutional Policy Pathwaysfor Supporting Research Software: Global Trends and Local Practices 2) Framework for Managing University Open Source Software from the MOSS-I project in Ireland 3) GI and de-rSE model guideline for the efficient development of research software which provies a research performing organisation (RPO) level template for policy documents 4) Talks from the 2022 Science Europe Conference on Open Science by Neil Chue Hong, Implementation of policies on research software, and Michelle Barker, Landscape of policies around research software.
For information on national and international policies that support research software, refer to our listing on the Guidelines page and blog post.