Supplementary Data 12: Case Study on Incubating International Communities of Practice - RSE Asia Association

The Research Software Engineering (RSE) Asia Association project was led by Saranjeet Kaur Bhogal and Jyoti Bhogal as part of their participation in Open Seeds OLS-4. On 14th October 2021, which is also the first International RSE Day, they launched the association with the mission to promote and build the research software engineering community and profession in the Asian region while also fostering global collaborations. Soon after, under the Pilot Mentoring program of the Society of RSE (SocRSE), Saranjeet started to build a community of practice around the RSE Asia Association. In Open Seeds OLS-5, Jyoti led the development of onboarding pathways to engage international volunteers with the mission of RSE Asia Association and adopted a Code of Conduct to ensure safe and inclusive engagement within the community. The association has successfully fostered one of the first communities focused on research software in the Asian region.

RSE Asia Association undertakes several activities, like hosting community calls, speaking at international events, carrying out outreach and training initiatives and collaborating with other open source/science communities to raise awareness of RSE in Asia. The association collaborates with the RSE AU-NZ community, an initiative led by an Open Seeds mentor Rowland Mosbergen, who is also a member of OLS’ governance advisory committee. Together they have organized the RSE Asia Australia Unconferences in 2023 and 2024, engaging early career researchers from their respective regions and beyond with skills and practices of RSE. The team collaborates with The Turing Way community and have drafted chapters in the Guide for Collaboration sharing experience from building RSE communities and working in remote and hybrid formats. In 2023, Saranjeet worked as Community Manager (Asia) for the Research Software Alliance (ReSA), led by Dr Michelle Barker, with the goal to share information on research software community news and initiatives from Asia with the international ReSA community and to develop awareness of ReSA in Asia. The association team participated in the Asia Pacific Advanced Network’s 53rd, 55th, and 56th meetings in Bangladesh (remotely), Nepal (in-person), and Sri Lanka (in-person), respectively, and in the FAB23 conference in Bhutan (in-person) to spread the awareness of research software in the Asian region. For her work to shape RSE in Asia, Saranjeet was awarded an Impact award from SocRSE during their annual conference RSECon 2023 in the UK. Saranjeet was invited to attend an annual Collaboration Workshop hosted by the UK’s Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) in 2023, and in 2024 she moved to the UK to join the RSE team at the Imperial College London. Jyoti, who now leads the association, is supported by Saranjeet as they transition the association to a Fiscally Sponsored Community within OLS.

RSE Asia Association members continue to engage with Open Seeds in different roles, with Saranjeet representing the association in the OLS’ governance advisory committee. As advocates of open science, the association not only follows the open science principles but unpacks and evolves the concepts to make it easy for the researchers and contributors from the Global South/majority to become part of the global open science movement.