Research software assessed for environment and security beyond fair
Beyond FAIR: A Fitness Function Framework for Sustainable Research Software
Software EngineeringCryptography and Security
Summary
Making sure research software is easy to find, use, and share is important, but not enough for it to last long. The authors say software should also be designed to use fewer resources and be more secure to avoid problems later. They built on a previous way to check software quality by adding new checks for energy use and security risks. This new approach helps people keep research software sustainable in many ways, including how safe and efficient it is.
What this means in practice
- •For research software developers: Continuously evaluate their software’s compliance with FAIR criteria plus environmental and security factors for improved long-term sustainability.
- •For infrastructure maintenance teams: Detect software vulnerabilities and inefficient resource usage early to reduce maintenance costs and technical debt.
Authors
Irdin Pekaric, Philipp Zech
Abstract
Research software sustainability is often assessed through the FAIR principles: findability, accessibility, interoperability and reusability. While important, FAIR does not cover all relevant sustainability concerns. Research software should also be environmentally responsible and secure over time. Excessive resource consumption increases environmental cost, while insecure software creates maintenance overhead, technical debt and barriers to reuse. To this end, in this paper, we extend a previously proposed fitness function framework for sustainable research software beyond FAIR. We introduce two additional sets of fitness functions: environmental functions targeting resource efficiency and execution footprint, and security functions targeting dependency health, vulnerability exposure and secure configuration. Together, these functions broaden continuous software assessment from FAIR compliance to a more complete view of sustainability. The resulting framework treats research software sustainability as a multidimensional property that includes FAIR, environmental responsibility and long-term security.