Institutional Software Templates for Aligning Best Practices in Research Software

Presentation and report of the workshop on software templates and best practices for research software. During the workshop participants discovered how to use the Meta Template tool to design customized research software templates, ensuring standardized software development best practices. The Meta Template is an open-source tool designed to help research software professionals create custom software templates that embed best practices from the start. Developed under the national project ‘Best Practices for Sustainable Software’, with funding from the Thematic Digital Competence Center for Natural and Engineering Sciences, the Meta Template supports software teams in adopting and implementing software best practices with minimal effort.

During the workshop, 20 participants discussed the role of software templates in adhering to best practices when developing research software, and the importance of coordinating the efforts to define what constitutes best practices for research software. Participants had a diverse range of roles: data stewards, researchers, software engineers/programmers, and library staff.