CORE Principles for building sustainable research communities

Abstract: Researchers regularly gather around problems, tools, shared interests and practices. We build resources which have the potential to advance our area of expertise, but we have not fostered the skills to build and maintain a sustainable community of users and contributors to make best use of those resources. This socio-technical infrastructure can maximise the reach and longevity of our efforts, increasing the potential for reuse and diverse impact.
In this session I will introduce the CORE principles for building sustinable research commuities: (C) Calibrate: Continuously measure interests, priorities and engagement, to understand and respond to your communities needs; (O) Open: Ensure knowledge, processes and roadmaps are accessible, shared, and transparent whenever possible; (R) Reward: Actively support, reward and celebrate all contributions, acknowledging that everything is valuable; (E) Empower: Give members genuine agency, authority and mechanisms to shape the communities’ activity. We will show how these principles can be applied in an integrated practice through careful infrastucture choices and intentional processes.

Links:

• RCM Cooperative: https://www.rcmcooperative.com
• Research Commuity Management paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.00108 
• The Turing Way: https://the-turing-way.start.page
• Communit Mapping
  • Ineractive map example: https://cassgvp.kumu.io/alan-turing-institute-environment-and-sustainability 
  • Early documentation of mapping process: https://github.com/rcmcooperative/community-mapping
• TOSI Project: http://github.com/rcmcooperative/partner-TOSI