Research software is essential to modern research, supporting everything from generating and analyzing data to sharing and preserving research results. Research Software Engineers (RSEs) play a key role in developing and maintaining research software. However, while RSEs are well placed to promote open, transparent and reproducible research, they are generally loosely distributed across institutions in various groups without a common platform for knowledge exchange and not represented by a dedicated community.

In recent years, local RSE communities have been formed at larger Swiss academic institutions (e.g., ETH Zurich and EPFL). The RSE4ORD project aimed to connect and further strengthen these local communities, form new ones across the ETH Domain, create opportunities for knowledge exchange, and lay the foundations for a broader Swiss RSE community. Moreover, it also sought to strengthen collaboration between RSEs, data stewards and other Open Research Data (ORD) communities as well as promoting FAIR principles.

The project’s activities covered a better understanding of the RSE landscape and its needs and also addressed how RSE communities could be supported and sustained beyond the duration of the project. With the project now completed, RSE4ORD has contributed to strengthening connections among research software professionals in the ETH Domain and to building a foundation for continued collaboration and community development around research software, FAIR principles and open science in the entire Switzerland.