The PRO4RS WG produced outputs to support research performing organisations worldwide to develop, align, and implement policies on research software, as a key component of FAIR and open science/scholarship. It was a joint initiative of the Research Software Alliance (ReSA) and the Research Data Alliance (RDA).

The PRO4RS recommendations are:

The work of the PRO4RS WG identified the following recommendations for research organisations wishing to better support research software in their institutional policies:

1. We recommend incorporating support for research software and those who develop and maintain it into existing policies and/or creation of a single policy on research software.
2. We recommend updating institutional policies to explicitly address research software in at least the following categories:
   1. Research outcomes/output
   2. Copyrights and software licensing
   3. Open access and access to research
   4. Open science
   5. Intellectual property
   6. Open source software
   7. Research data
   8. Research infrastructure
   9. Research ethics and integrity
   10. Research skills and training
   11. FAIR research outputs
   12. Privacy and protecting human subjects
   13. Research software impacting education
   14. Research assessment reform
   15. Diversity, equity and inclusion in research
3. We recommend considering engaging a wide range of parts of the research organisation to support the process to create organisational policies that support research software and its personnel. A bottom-up and/or top-down approach may be suitable depending on each organisation’s context.
4. We recommend appropriate skills and training, community building, digital infrastructure and incentives and rewards that enable incorporation of research software recognition and support into institutional policies.

Work undertaken by the PRO4RS working group has highlighted the important role that research software policies can play in supporting research. Such policies can help to ensure the use of technical best practices, inform institutional training programmes and underpin the quality of software-based research methods and outputs. At the same time, our work has highlighted that the number of institutions with formal research software policies is still very small.

It is important to remember that research institutions have a key role in changing the research landscape. A key motivation for institutions is often to develop and implement policies to comply with funding agency, government, and disciplinary requirements and norms around research output management. However, research institutions play a critical role as the employers of the personnel who develop and maintain research software; consequently their involvement is critical. And by establishing solid policies for research software management, institutions can promote good research practices, enhance collaboration, foster reproducibility, develop better researchers, and maximise the value to the institution and the impact of efficient and reliable scientific research. By excelling in this area, institutions can enhance their research impact, contribute to raising standards across the wider research community, and raise their profile in comparison with other institutions.

The recommendations from the PRO4RS seek to improve policies on research software, which does not directly aligns with any of the SDGs.

However, by improving policies for research software management, institutions can promote good research practices, enhance collaboration, foster reproducibility, develop better researchers, and maximise the value to the institution and the impact of efficient and reliable scientific research, independent of the field of research.

Research software is used across all fields of research. In this sense, improving policies on research software indirectly has a positive impact on all SDGs.