Raising the Profile of Research Software Through Collaboration

Research software is fundamental to contemporary research. Yet it does not receive the recognition it rightly deserves. Research software is not adequately recognised in the scholarly record through citation. There’s lack of funding and incentives for those who develop research software. The acknowledgment of the importance of research software as an independent research output lags behind that of research data and research publications. To raise the profile of research software at the policy level in The Netherlands, we gathered a group of researchers, research software engineers, data stewards, academic librarians and services providers from several institutions across the country. Our first step was to present the case for making research software a first class citizen in research to the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), the national research council of the Netherlands. Our next step is to write a position paper making recommendations to funding agencies and research institutions. This position paper will be open for consultation to the research community in the Netherlands. In this paper, we argue that if open science is to truly lead towards better, more transparent, and reproducible research, then research software needs to be treated in equal footing to research data and publications at the policy level. This collaborative effort - its aims, activities, and outputs - will be the focus of our presentation. The author has no conflicts of interest.