The Alliance’s new strategy for research software in Canada

Researcher holding a tablet with data overlay

The Digital Research Alliance of Canada (the Alliance) has released its National Research Software Strategy for 2025-30.

The research software (RS) ecosystem is varied and complex and evolving quickly. The Alliance’s vision is to build a world-class, equitable and sustainable RS ecosystem in Canada. This will be done through advancing capability, community, and coordination, delivering research software that spans the digital research infrastructure (DRI) ecosystem and enables advancements in research and innovation.

The National RS Strategy offers recommendations that will increase the value of an integrated DRI ecosystem by focusing on high-value aspects of RS, particularly where RS overlaps with advanced research computing (ARC) and research data management (RDM).

Key facts:

  • RS has been recognized internationally as a key pillar in the support of open scholarship and the DRI ecosystem
  • Managing RS is crucial for academic institutions and research organizations to enhance their productivity, collaboration and overall scientific impact
  • Canadian RS platforms serve thousands of national and international users
  • The Canadian funding environment makes it very difficult to hire and sustain research software engineer (RSE) teams, and has put some Canadian RS platforms that rely on these funding sources in a sustainability crisis

Background information:

For more information about the Alliance’s National Research Software Strategy, please contact [email protected].