Research Software Visible, Citable and Sustained

Across science disciplines, software code is being written by scientists and deemed critical to research conclusions. This is evidenced by an increasing number of papers reporting the use of customised software code to process and analyse data. Although data and code sharing policy exists, publishing the details of bespoke software is not yet a general practice. Accessibility mechanisms for provision of the source code as part of a publication or pre-print are technically a solved problem. For example, we have free access to version control systems, persistent identifiers, archiving tools, licenses and dedicated software repositories. Policy at various levels either recommend or mandate software availability statements. These policies exist in support of validating techniques and results, computational replicability and reproducibility, and the increased likelihood for research peers to use and build on methods. The ARDC is proposing a strategy for culture change, with the greater aim of improving recognition of research software as a first-class research output. To attain this goal we need to coordinate activities with research software authors to See, Shape and Sustain research software. Our target audience are PhDs and EMCRs investing the most of their time writing, testing and maintaining research software. We aim to increase the visibility of research software projects for broadest use and reuse. Boost incentives such as crediting authors for their research efforts and for supporting computational reproducibility. We envision the impact of these activities will encourage more researchers to improve the quality of their code and promote research excellence.