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SKAO is key player in software excellence institute
from Contact 17
BY MATTHEW TAYLOR (SKAO)
The SKAO is part of a new consortium helping to develop a best-practice framework to ensure research software and code excellence.
Nineteen organisations, including the SKAO, CERN, and the French national research agency CNRS, are involved in the EVERSE project.
Funded until at least 2027 by the European Union’s Horizon programme, EVERSE participants will help to standardise approaches for developing research software, maximising software quality and sustainability.
Their collective knowledge will be captured in a Research Software Quality toolkit (RSQkit), which can be used as a guidebook to best practice by current and future research infrastructures across the five European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) science clusters: astronomy and particle physics, environmental science, life science, photon and neutron science, and social sciences and humanities.
The project is split into five different work packages, with the SKAO involved in three, focusing on:
connecting relevant organisations to build the EVERSE network
assessing the approaches taken by different research communities and develop common ground for overall best practice
working towards providing a catalogue of software tools to feature in the RSQkit
The project has taken shape over the past year since its kick-off meeting in March 2024, and on 18 February 2025 the EVERSE network was officially launched for wider participation.
Initial SKAO input is helping define the collection of software tools in the RSQkit to ensures FAIRness – where software tools are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable, in line with the Observatory’s sustainability commitments.
For a distributed network like the SKA Regional Centre Network (SRCNet), where software development involves contributions from numerous countries and institutions, adherence to FAIR principles is crucial, ensuring seamless integration, interoperability, and long-term sustainability of the collaborative software ecosystem.
“There are clear benefits for the SKAO in engaging with this collaboration alongside other leading research infrastructures. Through EVERSE, the Observatory is helping guide an important exchange of ideas between experts across astronomy and other scientific disciplines,” said SRCNet Software Quality Engineer Shraddha Bajare.
“Our involvement is a great vote of confidence in our committed approach to FAIR principles, and recognition that the SKA telescopes and the SRCNet are underpinned by high-quality, sustainable software that will ensure operations across their decadal lifespans,” she added.
The project’s long-term goal is to establish an ongoing Virtual Institute of Research Software Excellence.
It also aims to support recognition, reward and career development for those who implement the quality assurance practices and policies that it champions.
