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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 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 FAIR for Research Software Working Group was jointly convened as a Research Data Alliance (RDA) Working Group, FORCE11 Working Group, and Research Software Alliance (ReSA) Task Force. The RDA Software Source Code Interest Group is the maintenance home for the principles. Concerns or queries about the principles can be raised at RDA plenary events organized by the SSC IG, where there may be opportunities for adopters to report back on progress. The full maintenance and retirement plan for the principles can be found on the RDA website.

This report summarises the work of the FAIR for Research Software Subgroup 4, which was tasked with reviewing the Towards FAIR Principles for Research Software paper and identifying new research that had been published after that paper was written. A survey was circulated to the subgroup, as well as further afield, that asked some general questions around FAIR for research software along with specific questions about the suitability of the principles presented in the Towards FAIR Principles for Research Software. This report summarises and analyses the results of the survey., {"references":["FAIR4RS WG. (2021). FAIR4RS Subgroup 4 - reading list of new research (1.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4555865"]}

Research software is a fundamental and vital part of research worldwide, yet there remain significant challenges to software productivity, quality, reproducibility, and sustainability. Improving the practice of scholarship is a common goal of the open science, open source software and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) communities, but improving the sharing of research software has not yet been a strong focus of the latter. To improve the FAIRness of research software, the FAIR for Research Software (FAIR4RS) Working Group has sought to understand how to apply 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 FAIR Principles for Research Software (FAIR4RS Principles). It is an outcome of the FAIR for Research Software Working Group (FAIR4RS WG). The FAIR for Research Software Working Group is jointly convened as an RDA Working Group, FORCE11 Working Group, and Research Software Alliance (ReSA) Task Force.