Open Source Program Office Research Assets Dashboard and Archival Resource

Software source code is increasingly recognized as a research output even at the highest policy level (e.g.: UNESCO recommendations, the DORA declaration and the French national plan for Open Science), but scholarly infrastructures for archival and metadata management of software products are still far from mature: unlike articles or data, software's unique complexity, dependency layers, and dynamic nature present distinct challenges for preservation, curation, attribution and discoverability. This presentation introduces the OSPO-RADAR project, an initiative by Software Heritage designed to support Open Source Program Offices (OSPOs) in research institutions. The aim is to improve how research software is managed, archived, and showcased, working to raise the profile of research software so it’s seen as a key part of research. The talk underscores the importance of archiving, referencing, describing, and citing software to ensure reproducibility, credit, and discoverability—placing software on equal footing with articles and data in scholarly communication. It highlights the role of scholarly infrastructures, metadata standards (like SWHID, CodeMeta, and FAIR-IMPACT RSMD guidelines), and collaborative community practices in mitigating software collapse and driving cultural change across national and international levels. Finally, sharing the FAIRCORE4EOSC roadmap for software metadata curation, stressing the need for sustained support, interoperability, and global recognition of research software as a first-class research output. The presentation was delivered live at the CHAOSS Community Call on April 30th 2025.