Society of Research Software Engineering CoARA Action Plan

CoARA Action Plan V e r s i o n 1 : N o v e m b e r 2 0 2 5 Registered Charity Number: 1182455 The Society of Research Software Engineering (SocRSE) is a registered charity in the UK, and our mission is to establish a research environment that recognises the vital role of software in research. We work to increase software skills across everyone working in research, to promote collaboration between researchers and software experts, and to support the creation of an academic career path for Research Software Engineers (RSEs). The Society has approximately 700 paid members around the world and hosts an online community of over 6,500 people. We believe that the roles within research software engineering form a critical part of data driven research, innovation and scholarship. Our society advocates for these interests, career pathways and how these roles contribute to research. CoARA is the Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment , a collective of organisations committed to reforming how research, researchers, and research organisations are evaluated. As part of this organisations are encouraged to produce an action plan to show how they are changing their practices in line with the CoARA commitments listed below (the first 4 of which form the ‘core’): 1. Recognise the diversity of contributions to, and careers in, research in accordance with the needs and nature of the research 2. Base research assessment primarily on qualitative evaluation for which peer review is central, supported by responsible use of quantitative indicators 3. Abandon inappropriate uses in research assessment of journaland publication-based metrics, in particular inappropriate uses of Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and h-index 4. Avoid the use of rankings of research organisations in research assessment 5. Commit resources to reforming research assessment as is needed to achieve the organisational changes committed to 6. Review and develop research assessment criteria, tools and processes 7. Raise awareness of research assessment reform and provide transparent communication, guidance, and training on assessment criteria and processes as well as their use 8. Exchange practices and experiences to enable mutual learning within and beyond the Coalition 9. Communicate progress made on adherence to the Principles and implementation of the Commitments 10. Evaluate practices, criteria and tools based on solid evidence and the state-of-the-art in research on research, and make data openly available for evidence gathering and research S O C I E T Y O F R E S E A R C H S O F T W A R E E N G I N E E R I N G P A G E 0 1 Background This document is the action plan for the Society of Research Software Engineering intended to inform our community how we are updating our practices over the next 4-5 years to align with the above commitments. SocRSE’s roots are in improving the recognition of those involved in contributing to research in a non-traditional sense, and has championed the formal role of the Research Software Engineer for over a decade. It has directly supported and championed the Hidden-REF project that works to raise the recognition of ‘non-traditional’ research contributions traditionally ignored in the REF assessments. By formulating a CoARA plan we reinforce our commitment to championing the valuable contributions made to research by software, and those working in non-traditional roles. S O C I E T Y O F R E S E A R C H S O F T W A R E E N G I N E E R I N G P A G E 2 1 HEIMAN SOFTWARE LABS PAGE 08 Commitment Reason for excluding Base research assessment primarily on qualitative evaluation for which peer review is central, supported by responsible use of quantitative indicators We do not carry out research assessments. Abandon inappropriate uses in research assessment of journaland publication-based metrics, in particular inappropriate uses of Journal Impact Factor (JIF) and h-index We do not use research assessment metrics. Avoid the use of rankings of research organisations in research assessment We do not carry out research assessments. Evaluate practices, criteria and tools based on solid evidence and the state-of-the-art in research on research, and make data openly available for evidence gathering and research We are not a governing body, we therefore do not have influence over these. We encourage our membership to engage with research on research practices, and apply learnings to ways of working. Excluded items We have excluded core CoARA commitments which involve research assessment, research assessment metrics as they are not activities that the society undertakes. We have also excluded evaluation of practices, criteria and tools as these are beyond the remit of society as we are not a governing body or learned society. However, as the activities of our membership become more visible as measurable research outputs, we need to continue to promote current approaches to appraisals and promotion criteria that are not utilising research assessment and volume metrics. S O C I E T Y O F R E S E A R C H S O F T W A R E E N G I N E E R I N G P A G E 0 3 Commitment Action Recognise the diversity of contributions to, and careers in, research in accordance with the needs and nature of the research. A core part of our mission is to improve recognition for ‘non-traditional’ research contributions. Some examples of this is our work collecting and promoting RSEStories, supporting the hidden-REF and funding the festival of the hidden-REF. Our members have developed the DIRECT framework and we have a public knowledge base for career grades and promotions. We are committed to continue supporting activities like those above, but also will dedicate effort towards raising the profile of people working outside of the community. This is targeting institutions without RSE roles or no centralised RSE team. We will create and maintain outreach materials for introducing the role of RSE in research. These will be made publicly available, making it easier for the community to conduct outreach activities. Commit resources to reforming research assessment as is needed to achieve the organisational changes committed to. Many of our activities around recognition of diversity of contributions and careers align well here. We also have ongoing support for the Software Sustainability Institutes’s (SSI) International RSE Survey, including funding for use of the data from that survey for impact. Action Plan W i t h r e g a r d s t o p r o g r e s s t o w a r d s t h e C o A R A c o m m i t m e n t s , o u r f i r s t s t e p i s t h e d e v e l o p m e n t a n d p u b l i c a t i o n o f t h i s a c t i o n p l a n w h i c h o u t l i n e s o u r c o m m i t m e n t s a n d p l a n s f o r f u t u r e p r o g r e s s . These are outlined below: S O C I E T Y O F R E S E A R C H S O F T W A R E E N G I N E E R I N G P A G E 0 4 Commitment Action Continued: Commit resources to reforming research assessment as is needed to achieve the organisational changes committed to SocRSE has recently created a Policy and Funding trustee role and will create a working group in order to drive organisational change at a larger scale. We create public materials on talking points, views, and lobbying positions from SocRSE so that senior and executive staff in the community can include these in their own discussions with stakeholders. We are aware that there are some initial skills required for the wider community to engage and we will signpost to other areas that build up these best practices. At a more granular level, we will promote materials for recognition of software in academia. For instance, citing research software, making your own software citable and publications for open source software like the Journal of Open Source Software. Review and develop research assessment criteria, tools and processes The new Policy and Funding working group aims to start shifting the expectations of stakeholders. One of these areas will be working with publishers to ensure appropriate software citation. SocRSE will curate a signposted list of initiatives and tools to help support RSEs in order to promote their work. These will be shared on our website’s resources link library. We will also work on getting guest blog posts on Citation File Format files, and citing software repositories. Action Plan cont’d S O C I E T Y O F R E S E A R C H S O F T W A R E E N G I N E E R I N G P A G E 0 5 Commitment Action Raise awareness of research assessment reform and provide transparent communication, guidance, and training on assessment criteria and processes as well as their use We are committed to work with leaders in the RSE community through our RSE Leaders special interest group (SIG). We will introduce this action plan through workshops, having a dedicated session to raise awareness amongst the leaders community about how they can support this action plan. We will also highlight narrative CVs and need for recognition of FAIR and open practices through a workshop session for RSE Leaders. Exchange practices and experiences to enable mutual learning within and beyond the Coalition We have ongoing collaboration with the SSI, including alignment of our CoARA action plans. We will ensure that we create a standing item to exchange progress in our regular meetings. We encourage (and support) institutional RSE groups to share resources with research practitioners at their institution and beyond. We will also make suggestions to regional groups on running specific sessions on areas of practice in order to share the strengths and learnings from one group with their local community. We will collect and publish case studies of good practice in areas such as career pathways, recognition as part of the research community, technical infrastructure management, and specialisms. Action Plan cont’d S O C I E T Y O F R E S E A R C H S O F T W A R E E N G I N E E R I N G P A G E 0 6 Commitment Action Continued: Exchange practices and experiences to enable mutual learning within and beyond the Coalition We will use our newsletters and charity Annual General Meeting (AGM) to put out a statement on our progress, learnings, and ongoing plans. We hope that this will raise the awareness within our membership. Communicate progress made on adherence to the Principles and implementation of the Commitments We will use our newsletters and charity Annual General Meeting (AGM) to put out a statement on our progress, learnings and ongoing plans. We hope that this will raise the awareness within our membership. There will also be a page on our website dedicated to the action plan, recording workshops and noting groups that have engaged with the action plan. We will revisit the action plan on an annual basis to keep it up to date with changes in the society and/or wider environment. This will include inviting comments/feedback from the membership for the core team to consider and incorporate these. Action Plan cont’d S O C I E T Y O F R E S E A R C H S O F T W A R E E N G I N E E R I N G P A G E 0 7 Action Version Date Working group members Publish 1.0 November 2025 Samantha Ahern, UCL Jack Atkinson, Institute of Computing for Climate Science, University of Cambridge Stef Piatek, UCLH The Society of Research Software Engineering CoARA Action Plan is produced and reviewed by a working group consisting of members of the Society and Trustees. This document is scheduled for review and update on annual basis. Version History S O C I E T Y O F R E S E A R C H S O F T W A R E E N G I N E E R I N G P A G E 0 8