2021 Strategic Planning Meeting

steering committee governance

Published: Mar 4, 2021

The Steering Committee met in February for a strategic planning meeting to prioritize activities for the US-RSE Association for 2021 and lay the foundation for the association over the next 3-5 years.

Based on pre-meeting brainstorming and discussion during the meeting, we identified 6 main areas of activity that are core to the association:

  • Governance: the operations of the association
  • Community: growing a diverse US-RSE community and increasing member involvement, engagement, and inclusion
  • Events: community calls and planning for workshops, conferences, and other events
  • Careers: supporting members’ career development and developing resources to support RSE careers more generally
  • Education: resources and programs to build RSE skills and qualifications
  • Policy: working with and advising institutions and funding agencies on policies to support RSEs and research software

After some small-group discussion about activities in these areas and concrete goals we could work towards, the Steering Committee identified a set of overall goals to prioritize for 2021:

  • Governance:
    • Implement a membership management system
    • Pursue some type of formal organizational status
    • Develop a process and template for working groups
    • Establish a working group to pursue funding opportunities and develop funding plans for the organization
    • Update and refresh the website
  • Community:
    • Support the diversity, equity, and inclusion working group
    • Continue regular community calls
  • Events:
    • Plan a US-RSE virtual workshop for 2021
    • Plan networking events or formal panels, workshops, or birds of a feather sessions at conferences members plan to attend
  • Education:
    • Establish a working group to explore options for an RSE training program

While any set of priorities is necessarily limited, we also hope that members of the US-RSE community will continue to propose and lead additional activities as well. We need continued engagement from the community to realize these goals and lead new initiatives.

As always, if you’d like to help with any of the above goals, or just get more involved with the US-RSE Association, please reach out to the Steering Committee on Slack (@sc) or via email (contact@us-rse.org).

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