About the Research Software Directory (RSD)

We believe that open and reusable research software is just as crucial to today’s academic research as are open access publications and open data. To promote the visibility, impact and reuse of research software, the Netherlands eScience Center has developed the Research Software Directory, a content management system tailored to software.

The Research Software Directory

  • Facilitates researchers to find and quickly judge the relevance and quality of research software
  • Encourages research software engineers to make their research software findable and accessible, ensuring recognition of their work
  • Facilitates research institutes to showcase the software produced by their organization and monitor its reuse and impact

Software in context

All software in the Research Software Directory is presented within its research context. The system harvests information from sources such as GitHub and Zenodo, and presents the software with its associated data, projects, scientific papers and other publications. The pages also show the social context – who the developers are, how active the development is, and any linked tutorials, blog posts, or videos.

Research Software Directory as a Service

The current implementation of the Research Software Directory is still under development and is limited to use by the Netherlands eScience Center and several partner research organizations in the Netherlands (Utrecht University, Leiden University, Amsterdam University Medical Center). We expect to open the Research Software Directory for other research organizations late 2022.

Open source

The software behind the Research Software Directory is open source, so you’re welcome to use it to host a Research Software Directory for your organization or yourself.

Get in touch

If you’re interested in using the Research Software Directory for the software output of your own organization, or you have any other questions or comments about this service, please get in touch with us at rsd@esciencecenter.nl.