August 2024 Newsletter

RSECon24

The eighth annual Research Software Engineering Conference (RSECon24) will take place 3rd – 5th September 2024 in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK
In person registration has sold out, but online registration is still open until 23rd of August 2024: https://rsecon24.society-rse.org/registration/

A thank you to our RSECon24 sponsors

So far, we gained support from 11 fantastic sponsors for the RSE Conference this year, without whom, we could not run the conference to the standard that we do. We are excited to have the following sponsors at the time of writing this newsletter:

  • Platinum Sponsor: CloudKubed ,
  • Gold Sponsor: UK AI Research Resource
  • Silver Sponsors: The Alan Turing Institute and the Wellcome Trust
  • Bronze Sponsors: Newcastle University, EPCC, UK Research & Innovation, Software Sustainability Institute, University of Edinburgh, GitHub Education and Dreaming Spires.

For a full listing go to our webpage https://rsecon24.society-rse.org/sponsors/ where you will also find the links to all our sponsors. Check them out.

RSE Worldwide

The sign-up for the RSE Worldwide sessions is now live. RSE Worldwide presents an opportunity to discuss how we – as members of the international RSE community – can foster strong, vibrant local communities while reaping the benefits of international coordination and cooperation.

You can sign up using this form https://forms.gle/aB8pzabBMiTosvjQA or, for more information, visit the conference website.

Society Updates

2023 AGM Report

The report from the 2023 Society AGM, held at RSECon23 in Swansea, is now online. It includes a summary of who stood down, who was elected and a full recording of the AGM (along with the slides from the presentation).

Events and Initiatives Fund

Did you know that the Society has funding to provide financial support for events and initiatives which support our mission statement and charitable objectives?

Learn more or apply for a grant here:  https://society-rse.org/policy-for-socrse-events-and-initiatives-grant/ 

Membership

Not yet a member? Why not join us today?  Read about all the benefits of being a member on our website. We welcome people to become members who are not employed as RSEs but do support our mission

Jobs

A reminder that if you are looking for RSE-related jobs, you can join the #jobs channel on the RSE Slack workspace or visit our vacancies page.

We are on Zenodo

Zenodo is a popular publishing platform and our community is there with two Zenodo groups.

The Community Account: https://zenodo.org/communities/rse/
The Society Account: https://zenodo.org/communities/socrse/

The Society Account is for Society publications, such as our annual report. The Community account is for RSEs in the community to share publications about RSE.

Social Media

A reminder that we are on Mastodon! Follow us @[email protected].

News & Events

Digital Humanities & Research Software Engineering Summer School

Colleagues at Cambridge recently hosted a ‘Digital Humanities & Research Software Engineering Summer School’. You can read more about the event on our blog here

This event was supported by the Society’s Events and Initiatives Fund, mentioned above.

RSE Stories: Cristian Dinu & Arianna Ciula

We’re finally releasing our RSE stories from last year! First up is Cristian and Arianna.

Cristian talks about green computing and transitioning from commercial web development.

Arianna tells us about the many hats she wears and her academic background. https://society-rse.org/careers/rse-stories/

We’re collecting RSE Stories at RSECon

If you want to be interviewed for your journey into the research software engineering space, we’re collecting interviews! Email us at [email protected] if you’d like let us know ahead of time or chat to us at the society stall. You can also fill in this form if you’d prefer https://forms.gle/Z897cD7rojtzPYFH8

We have interviews from Jamie Quinn and Matt Williams published. 

Jamie highlights the different aspects of his RSE work, software sustainability institute and career progression in RSEing. 

We took the opportunity with Matt as the RSE Society President to find out about the RSE Society, RSE community and advice on a community and individual level.

The Hidden REF Competition

The Hidden REF was launched to raise awareness of the research outputs and roles that are vital to research but overlooked by traditional research evaluation. We want to build a more effective and more equitable system for recognising contributions to research success. Please take part in the competition if you work in research and want to raise awareness of your own work or the work of others. https://hidden-ref.org/hidden-ref-competition/

Community Survey: Evolving the RSE Leaders Network

Help us shape the future of the RSE community and enhance access to expertise by completing a brief survey full information and link to the survey can be found here: https://society-rse.org/community/rse-leaders-meetings/community-survey-evolving-the-rse-leaders-network/

Research Software in the East of England

Are you a researcher-developer or Research Software Engineer in the East of England, or just interested in the topic of research software development? Are you interested in networking and knowledge exchange with people developing research software in your region?

We would like to hear from you!

We are in the starting phase of setting up a regional Research Software group in the East of England, and we would like to hear from you what would be useful for you. Would you like to have annual meet-ups? A regular seminar series on the topic? Training? Anything else? And also: Would you like to be involved in the organisation of this group?

Please sign up for our mailing list by requesting to join this Google Group: https://groups.google.com/u/1/a/society-rse.org/g/east-england (note: you will need to be signed into a Google account) and join the #region-east-england channel on the UK RSE Slack (you can request access here: https://forms.gle/eU6536gnRtyCVGyh9 ). You can also email Miren ([email protected]) and Marion ([email protected]) to have a chat about this.

We will be at RSECon24, so feel free to grab us there anytime, and watch out for a lunch time event of the Regional RSE Groups Special Interest Group (Regional SIG)! 

What should we call Cohort Discovery?

Hi everyone! We are looking for help to name a tool we are developing at Health Data Research UK (HDR UK). The tool helps researchers find out where relevant health data is in the UK that would be helpful for their research. It is currently called ‘Cohort Discovery’ and we are testing how good this name is, or whether there are better alternatives that we should be considering. Hugely grateful if you have a spare few minutes to share your views by filling in the survey! https://forms.office.com/e/bU0meCmk2L

Podcasts

Season 7 of Code for Thought finished with an episode about software management plans end of July. Since January, there were over 30 episodes being published. There’ll be a break in August before the new season starts on the first Tuesday in September again.

Code for Thought is available on all major podcast directories and – since February also on YouTube podcast. You can also listen to it directly on the hosting site https://codeforthought.buzzsprout.com/


About the author: Peter Schmidt