M2.15 Assessment report on 'FAIRness of software'

Software has an important place in academia and as such it has an important place in the FAIR ecosystem. Software can be used throughout the research process; however it can also be an outcome of the research process. Distinguishing between these different roles is essential for any assessment of the `FAIRness of software’.

This is the first milestone of the FAIRsFAIR project focused specifically on software as a digital object. In this report we discuss the state-of-the-art of software in the scholarly ecosystem in general and in the FAIR literature in particular. We identify the challenges of different stakeholders when it comes to finding and reusing software. Furthermore, we present an analysis of nine resources that call for the recognition of software in academia and that present guidelines or recommendations to improve its status - either by becoming more FAIR or by improving the curation of software in general. With this analysis we demonstrate to what extent each of the FAIR principles is seen as relevant, achievable and measurable; and in what sense it benefits software artifacts. Finally, we present 10 high-level recommendations for organizations that seek to define FAIR principles or other requirements for research software in the scholarly domain.