Introduction
On 16 September 2026, the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Space (MESRE) published its Open Science Strategy for 2026–2033. It was announced at the 4th OECD Blue Sky Forum on Data and Indicators for Science, Technology and Innovation.
For the Academic OSPO community, one thing stands out: research software is no longer a footnote. It has its own strategic objective, a dedicated chapter on the challenges it faces, and concrete measures that go beyond “please share your code”. The most striking of these, for our community, is the plan to support a national network of Open Source Programme Offices (OSPOs) in higher education and research.
From Short Plans to an Eight Year Strategy
France adopted its first National Plan for Open Science in 2018 and a second one in 2021. The first references to software appear in this second plan. The new strategy changes the time scale: it sets a course for eight years and delivers it through four-year action plans.
The progress since 2018 is real. Open access has risen from 38% to 61% of all French publications. Using French Open Science Monitor data, the strategy reports that articles sharing their source code receive 13.5% more citations on average.
The strategy aims to embed these transformations in a longer-term perspective.
The Software Paradox and a Dedicated Objective
The strategy names what it calls “the software paradox”. FOSS (Free and open source software) emerged in the 1980s (a decade before arXiv), producing global successes such as Python, R, scikit-learn and BLAST. Yet open science policies were built around publications and data first. Software only appeared explicitly in policy in the early 2020s, with the updated OECD Recommendation (2021) and the full chapter of France’s Second National Plan for Open Science.
The diagnosis is frank. The strategy states that:
- The current organisation does not always allow research software to be maintained, developed and valued
- Technical and legal support for researchers who develop software is still insufficient
- Contributions to software remain weakly recognised in research careers, even though every discipline produces software
- Forges are scattered across French institutions, and proprietary forges remain very attractive, which raises sovereignty questions
It also cites evidence of impact: according to the 2024 national study by Boulet and Blanc, only 10% of software produced by French public research is released under a proprietary licence, and 30% is used outside academia.
Objective OS7; Increase the Openness and Valorisation of Source Code and Research Software, answers this diagnosis with four pillars:
- Improve the discoverability of research software and promote its reuse
- Offer a sovereign software development environment (a forge) to the academic community
- Archive the world’s software heritage in Software Heritage
- Build a network that supports research teams, researchers and engineers who develop software, across development, maintenance and dissemination.
Spotlight: A National Network of Academic OSPOs
For our community, this is the headline: the French strategy explicitly calls for Academic OSPOs. Action O7.A3; Develop a support network for software development (OSPOs), includes measure SO7.A3.M1: support the creation of a network of Open Source Programme Offices in French higher education and research.
The measure states that these OSPOs are modelled on those developed in industry, and gives them a broad remit.
In short, Academic OSPOs are expected to work on four fronts:
- Help institutions shape their software policy and handle legal questions
- Give research teams hands-on technical guidance, from design choices to documentation
- Build skills through training and mentoring
- Make research software more visible and reusable, while linking up with peers in a French OSPO network and in wider national and international collaborations.
This list closely mirrors the CURIOSS definition of an Academic OSPO.
Two points stand out. First, the OSPO is framed as a strategic actor that helps shape institutional software policy, not just as a service desk. Second, the measure builds in networking at every scale - from a French OSPO network to international partnerships.
The measure builds on groundwork already laid in France: in September 2025, UniversitĂ© Grenoble Alpes (UGA), a CURIOSS member, inaugurated the country’s first official Academic OSPO, and a 2026 report on Academic OSPOs in France offers a common framework for institutions that want to follow.
A National Forge with Software Heritage as the Safety Net
The action plan launches a national forge for software developed in French higher education and research. The aim is a sovereign, shared development environment, attractive enough to keep academic projects away from the pull of proprietary platforms.
The forge is meant to work alongside Software Heritage, the universal software archive co-founded in France, which now preserves more than 400 million software projects, including code from forges that have since closed. Development happens on the forge. Long-term preservation and citability come from Software Heritage, with HAL, the French open archive, linking software to publications.
The strategy also ties software to sovereignty more broadly. Supporting FOSS in research infrastructures and services is presented as a guarantee of control and durability that proprietary environments cannot offer.
What this means for Academic OSPOs
The strategy does more than describe functions Academic OSPOs already perform: it names OSPOs as the vehicle for supporting research software.
A few takeaways for the community:
- Policy Recognition: A national strategy now recognises support for research software development as a necessity
- A Network - Not a Single Office: The measure plans a French OSPO network, so institutions can pool expertise
- Infrastructure Plus People: The forge and Software Heritage provide the tools; the OSPO network provides the skills. Neither works without the other
- Recognition in Assessment: The strategy links open science to research assessment and to CoARA. In the long term, the key will be ensuring that software contributions are recognised in academic careers
For OSPOs outside France, the strategy is a useful reference: a national government stating, with evidence, that research software deserves its own policy and infrastructure, and that academic OSPOs are part of the answer.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to CURIOSS member, Violaine Louvet for writing this article.
Photo by Guillaume Didelet on Unsplash
A note on AI use: This content was drafted with the help of AI, which was used to structure the content and refine the translation. As always, there were plenty of human eyes reviewing, editing and improving the content before this article made it to publication. Thanks go to our community for the insights. If you do spot any errors, please let us know so we can correct them!