Episode 267: Michelle Barker on the Research Software Alliance (ReSA)

Guest Michelle Barker Panelist Richard Littauer Show Notes In this
episode of Sustain, host Richard Littauer welcomes Michelle Barker,
Director of the Research Software Alliance (ReSA), for an in-depth
conversation about the critical yet often overlooked role of
research software in open science. Michelle shares her journey from
sociologist to open science advocate, unpacking how ReSA fosters
global collaboration to support software developed for research.
Together, they explore what it means to build “social
infrastructure” in the open source ecosystem, the challenges of
aligning international stakeholders, and how ReSA is shaping the
future of research through strategy, connection, and
community-driven solutions. Press the download button now to hear
more! [00:01:58] Michelle explains how she got involved in open
science and open source software. [00:04:35] Why Research Software?
Michelle shares that ReSA was founded to coordinate globally on
research software, which lacked unified international
representation unlike open data. [00:07:21] We hear about ReSA’s
engagement strategy and the three main strategies: knowledge
sharing, stakeholder collaboration, and governance evolution.
[00:09:37] ReSA includes RSEs as one of many stakeholders and works
broadly across funders, policymakers, infrastructure providers, and
more. [00:10:26] Research software is defined as software developed
within a research context to solve a research problem and most is
open source but not all. [00:13:12] Richard asks about tracking
engagement, and Michelle shares it’s hard to quantify outcomes, but
standard metrics include newsletter subs, citations, and forum
attendance. [00:15:08] Michelle explains the role of social
infrastructure. [00:17:37] What’s hard about being a social
infrastructure? Michelle talks about the challenge of how to
motivate groups of people to work together. [00:19:52] Michelle
shares her personal approach to networking: research, targeting key
individuals, emotional engagement, and strategic planning for
conferences. [00:24:35] A new strategy plan is rolling out and
Michelle shares what’s different. [00:27:32] ReSA is working to
establish research software as its own recognized field. [00:29:57]
Michelle recognizes shared challenges of both open source and
research sectors. The keys to success are spotlight wins and
demonstrate value through supported infrastructure and recognized
contributions. [00:30:40] Find out where you can find out more
about ReSA. Spotlight [00:31:11] Richard’s spotlight is the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). [00:31:48]
Michelle’s spotlight is Softcite. Links SustainOSS
(https://sustainoss.org/) podcast@sustainoss.org
(mailto:podcast@sustainoss.org) richard@sustainoss.org
(mailto:richard@sustainoss.org) SustainOSS Discourse
(https://discourse.sustainoss.org/) SustainOSS Mastodon
(https://mastodon.social/tags/sustainoss) SustainOSS Bluesky
(https://bsky.app/profile/sustainoss.bsky.social) SustainOSS
LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/sustainoss/) Open
Collective-SustainOSS (Contribute)
(https://opencollective.com/sustainoss) Richard Littauer Socials
(https://www.burntfen.com/2023-05-30/socials) Michelle Barker
LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelledbarker/) Research
Software Alliance (ReSA) (https://www.researchsoft.org/) ReSA
LinkedIn
(https://www.linkedin.com/company/research-software-alliance/) ReSA
Mastodon (https://fosstodon.org/@researchsoft) ReSA Bluesky
(https://bsky.app/profile/researchsoftware.bsky.social) Sustain
Podcast-Episode 264: Neil Chue Hong on the Software Sustainability
Institute (https://podcast.sustainoss.org/264) USRSE’25:
Philadelphia, PA Oct 6-8, 2025 (https://us-rse.org/) US-RSE
(https://us-rse.org/) NOAA (https://www.noaa.gov/) Softcite
(https://github.com/softcite/softcite_dataset_v2) Strategic Report
Overview
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XAioZINde902hlujD9hIaiIK5Eagx7w5XP9f8Q7P0KU/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.lbr59vck876)
Full Strategic Report
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-nyor44kBo5v6lb92ajjzJmYFJ-TXLcafyUz9luQMVk/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.iiwcx8uz2jje)
Defining Research Software: a controversial discussion
(https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5504016) Credits Produced by
Richard Littauer (https://www.burntfen.com/) Edited by Paul M. Bahr
at Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/) Show notes by
DeAnn Bahr Peachtree Sound (https://www.peachtreesound.com/)
Special Guest: Michelle Barker.