FAIRsharing record for: FAIR Principles for Research Software

This FAIRsharing record describes: To improve the sharing and reuse of research software, the FAIR for Research Software (FAIR4RS) Working Group has applied the FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data management and stewardship to research software, bringing together existing and new community efforts. Many of the FAIR Guiding Principles can be directly applied to research software by treating software and data as similar digital research objects. However, specific characteristics of software — such as its executability, composite nature, and continuous evolution and versioning — make it necessary to revise and extend the principles. This document presents the first version of the RDA FAIR Principles for Research Software (FAIR4RS) Principles, and includes explanatory text to aid adoption. It is an outcome of the FAIR for Research Software Working Group (FAIR4RS WG) based on community consultations that started in 2019. The FAIR4RS WG is jointly convened as a Research Data Alliance (RDA) Working Group, FORCE11 Working Group, and Research Software Alliance (ReSA) Task Force.