CodeMeta: Metadata, Ontologies & Interoperability for Research Software

CodeMeta: Metadata, Ontologies & Interoperability for Research Software Morane Gruenpeter, Director of Scholarly Ecosystem EOSC-OA2 | CodeMeta for Research Software | 25/11/2025 | CC-BY 4.0 Research Software ➔created ○during the research process ○for a research purpose Software in research ➔used for research FAIR4RS output: Gruenpeter et al. Defining Research Software: a controversial discussion (Version 1). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5504016 Three pillars of Open Science Software Heritage CC-By 4.0 2019 Software has multiple facets: -a tool -a research outcome or result -the object of research A pillar in Open Science: Software facets in Research EOSC-OA2 | M. Gruenpeter | CodeMeta for Research Software | 25/11/2025 | CC-BY 4.0 | #2/20 EOSC EUtopia or Dystopia for Software Ascending and Descending by M. C. Escher How to make a cultural shift towards software recognition as a first class research output and a vital infrastructure? From Policies to the Infrastructures: the strange loop is infinite. EOSC-OA2 | M. Gruenpeter | CodeMeta for Research Software | 25/11/2025 | CC-BY 4.0 | #3/20 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2021.100222 FAIR is not enough for Software: is CodeMeta? FAIR4RS published in 2022 EOSC-OA2 | M. Gruenpeter | CodeMeta for Research Software | 25/11/2025 | CC-BY 4.0 | #4/20 Researchers ●archive and reference software ●find useful software ●get credit for software ●verify/reproduce/improve results Laboratories/teams ●track software contributions ●produce reports ●maintain web page Research Organization know its software assets for: ●technology transfer, ●impact metrics, ●Strategy Curators ●verify and curate software metadata ●provide documentation on software curation ●monitor research teams’ production Who are the stakeholders? EOSC-OA2 | M. Gruenpeter | CodeMeta for Research Software | 25/11/2025 | CC-BY 4.0 | #5/20 Archive ➔make sure we can access to retrieve the software (reproducibility) Reference ➔make sure we can identify the software artifacts (reproducibility) Cite (for credit) ➔make it rewarding to create software by giving credit to authors (evaluation!) Describe ➔make it easy to discover the software projects (visibility) What is at stake? The SIRS report pillars EOSC-OA2 | M. Gruenpeter | CodeMeta for Research Software | 25/11/2025 | CC-BY 4.0 | #6/20 Serving the scholarly ecosystem EOSC SIRS report: European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Scholarly infrastructures for research software : report from the EOSC Executive Board Working Group (WG) Architecture Task Force (TF) SIRS, Publications Office, 2020, https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2777/28598 Creating connections and mutualizing efforts ISO/IEC 18670:2025 Short term recommendations • Strengthening interactions between • Aggregators, publishers , scholarly repositories, and Software Heritage • Metadata standards & tools => CodeMeta • Generalizing the use of PIDs (extrinsic & intrinsic) => SWHID EOSC-OA2 | M. Gruenpeter | CodeMeta for Research Software | 25/11/2025 | CC-BY 4.0 | #7/20 Snapshot: Nov 25th 2025 An open infrastructure to collect, preserve and share all source code EOSC-OA2 | M. Gruenpeter | CodeMeta for Research Software | 25/11/2025 | CC-BY 4.0 | #8/20 9 https://docs.softwareheritage.org/devel/swh-deposit/api/index.html Documentation Used https://docs.softwareheritage.org/user/deposit/index.html CodeMeta in the software deposit workflow at SWH See the HAL example 2 steps process: ●Save code now: Public Forge URL ●Metadata deposit on existing asset in the archive using CodeMeta Can be used by all types of infrastructures EOSC-OA2 | M. Gruenpeter | CodeMeta for Research Software | 25/11/2025 | CC-BY 4.0 | #9/20 Gruenpeter M. and Thornton K. (2018) Pathways for Discovery of Free Software (LibrePlanet 2018). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pathways-discovery-free.pdf EOSC-OA2 | M. Gruenpeter | CodeMeta for Research Software | 25/11/2025 | CC-BY 4.0 | #16/20 Software Heritage as a metadata Broker • Ingests metadata from qualified sources • Extracts metadata from project information • Creates a global graph using SWHIDs • Delivers consolidated views to stakeholders EOSC-OA2 | M. Gruenpeter | CodeMeta for Research Software | 25/11/2025 | CC-BY 4.0 | #17/20 Metadata workflow at Software Heritage A culture shift: Making software a first class research output CodeMeta Adopted with guidelines Pyramid from Strategy for Culture Change: Brian Nosek (2019) https://www.cos.io/blog/strategy-for-culture-change CodeMeta - More than a few added properties to schema.org (#453) CodeMeta Generator CodeMeta Vocabulary CodeMeta Mappings CodeMeta => citation / indicators EOSC-OA2 | M. Gruenpeter | CodeMeta for Research Software | 25/11/2025 | CC-BY 4.0 | #18/20 Utopia: Building bridges between infrastructures, projects and communities Funding CodeMeta through projects: EOSC-OA2 | M. Gruenpeter | CodeMeta for Research Software | 25/11/2025 | CC-BY 4.0 | #19/20 Call to action Software recognition requires a supported and coordinated effort in EOSC We need to treat code not just as a tool, but as a core pillar of our intellectual heritage. Mutualisation Open by default Sustainability Recognition Curation EOSC-OA2 | M. Gruenpeter | CodeMeta for Research Software | 25/11/2025 | CC-BY 4.0 | #20/20 Interoperability through adoption: What strategies do you believe are most effective for building bridges between communities and influencing adoption? Chue Hong, N., Breitmoser, E., Antonioletti, M., Davidson, J., Garijo, D., Gonzalez-Beltran, A., Gruenpeter, M., Huber, R., Jonquet, C., Priddy, M., Shepeherdson, J., Verburg, M., & Wood, C. (2025). D5.2 - Metrics for automated FAIR software assessment in a disciplinary context (1.1). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15535629 Gruenpeter, M., Granger, S., Monteil, A., Chue Hong, N., Breitmoser, E., Antonioletti, M., Garijo, D., González Guardia, E., Gonzalez Beltran, A., Goble, C., Soiland-Reyes, S., Juty, N., & Mejias, G. (2024). D4.4 - Guidelines for recommended metadata standard for research software within EOSC (V1.0). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10786147 https://github.com/FAIR-IMPACT/RSMD-guidelines Gruenpeter, M., Granger, S., Monteil, A., Sadowska, J., Nivault, E., Ioannidis, A., Azzouz-Thuderoz, M., Wagner, M., Bozaci, S., Wimalaratne, S., Bingert, S., & Cakir, G. (2024). Deliverable D6.1 | Report on Standardisation and Curation of Software Metadata and PIDs. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14509418 Ioannidis, A., Gruenpeter, M., Di Cosmo, R., Granger, S., Boyer, R., Douard, D., Lorentz, V., Lambert, A., Monteil, A., Sadowska, J., Nivault, E., Indarto, E., Steinhoff, W., Bozaci, S., Wagner, M., Didas, M., Azzouz-Thuderoz, M., Schubotz, M., Vergoulis, T., … Gkinis, K. (2025). Deliverable D6.2 - Report on Research Software Archival APIs and Connectors. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15552472 Deliverables The Software Metadata Curation Roadmap Short-term (0-2 years) 1. Support and training: Academic institutions should invest in curation and training activities for researchers and support staff, acknowledging the significant effort required. 2. Infrastructure curation capabilities: Infrastructures encompass a wide range of platforms, including aggregators, publishers and scholarly repositories. 3. Adopting and adapting metadata guidelines: Institutions should require infrastructures to provide metadata capabilities that align with community-based guidelines, such as the FAIR-IMPACT Research Software MetaData (RSMD) guidelines, CodeMeta, and/or CFF metadata standards. 4. Community effort: Infrastructures should actively engage in community-driven efforts (e.g., the SciCodes consortium) to develop and implement standards, guidelines, and best practices. 5. Recognition & acknowledgement: ○Career evaluation: Institutions should integrate curated metadata records into activity reports to highlight software as a recognized and valued research output, using this information in the career evaluation of researchers as an incentive. ○Citation standard: Strengthening the connection between researchers and their software outputs by using the BibTeX @software type in articles and ensuring that software is properly cited and credited in scholarly work. 10.5281/zenodo.14509418 Read the full report The Software Metadata Curation Roadmap Medium-term (2-5 years) 1. Adoption: Institutions and funders should support the adoption of infrastructures that propose curation capabilities to ensure the maintenance and sustainability of these infrastructures. 2. Robust curation processes: Stakeholders should implement robust curation processes utilizing the capabilities of infrastructures. 3. Automation: Automation should be employed wherever possible to streamline the curation process and reduce the manual burden on researchers and curators. 4. Interoperability: ○Identifiers: Infrastructures should support both intrinsic (e.g., SWHID) and extrinsic (e.g., DOI) identifiers for software identification and ensure that Software Hash Identifiers (SWHID) are exposed for archived resources whenever possible. ○Exposing metadata: The adoption of standard APIs is crucial for making metadata harvestable across different platforms, thereby enhancing interoperability. 5. Feedback mechanisms: The research community should establish regular feedback channels, similar to those used in Open Source communities, to enable users to report issues and suggest improvements of functionalities and workflows to the infrastructures. The Software Metadata Curation Roadmap Long-term (5-10 years and beyond) 1. Monitoring: Institutions should actively monitor the software production within their laboratories to ensure the quality, visibility, and impact of research outputs. Effective monitoring relies on the curation capabilities of the infrastructure in use, which must be equipped to track, manage, and preserve software throughout its lifecycle. 2. Maintenance of community standards: Funders and institutions should provide monetary and human resources to continue maintaining community efforts, such as CodeMeta, CFF and SWHID. 3. Sustainability: ○Define and communicate measures: Infrastructures should define and communicate their sustainability measures, including governance, retention, and end-of-life policies, as suggested by the SciCodes best practices (Task Force on Best Practices for Software Registries et al., 2020) and POSI principles (Bilder G, Lin J, Neylon C, 2020). ○Establish funding models: Funders should establish funding models to ensure sustainable support for projects, infrastructures, and training initiatives. ○Foster institutional collaboration: Institutions should actively collaborate across national and international levels to share resources, knowledge, and expertise, enabling sustainable practices and reducing duplication of effort.