April 2025 Newsletter
Welcome to our April 2025 Newsletter! We’re excited to announce RSECon25 registration opening and other conference updates as well as a selection of announcements and blog posts from the UK and International RSE Communities.
Headlines
Our main updates this month include exciting updates on this years RSE Conference.
RSECon25
This year, RSECon25 will be held at the University of Warwick in Coventry (UK) from 9-11 September 2025 and you can now register!
Updates
- Registration – Join us in-person or remotely by grabbing your tickets here, sales close on 31st July (or earlier if they sell out, like they did in 2024!).
- Bursaries – we recognise that in-person attendance is a valuable experience for many, so we are offering a limited number of bursaries for those who would otherwise be unable to attend the conference in-person. Click here for more information and to apply.
- Submissions – the deadline has been extended to 2025-05-02 23:59 BST (from 2025-04-25 23:59 BST).
- Reviewing – call for reviewers closes on 2025-05-06 23:59 BST.
- Volunteering – the call for volunteers is now open, if you’d like to help with the running of the event (and get a reduction in your attendance fee) apply by 2025-05-02 23:59 BST.
Key dates can be found on the Important Dates page. You can also keep abreast of announcements and deadlines by following us on social media using the hashtag #rsecon25.
Celebrate Amazing Contributions to Research Software Engineering!
Nominations are also open for the RSE Society’s annual recognition of outstanding Research Software Engineering colleagues with an awards ceremony at RSECon25. You can nominate your colleagues in one of the following categories:
- Rising Star
- Training & Education
- Impact
For more information and to nominate someone, please visit the Awards Page on the RSECon25 website.
Community News & Events
This month, we have updates from a number of communities that you may want to get involved with.
RSE Stories
This month we’ve published RSE Stories from Dan Katz on his role as Chief Scientist at NCSA and the US RSE community, and Samantha Finnigan on becoming a Senior RSE and neurodivergence.
Research Software Engineering in the East of England (RSEEE) – Kick-off Event
After an inaugural online meet-up on RSE Day 2024, the official in-person kick-off of the regional RSE group in the East of England took place on Thursday, March 27, in collaboration with the similarly new regional Women in HPC chapter Cambridge & East Anglia.
Read all about it in our blog post: https://east-england.society-rse.org/show-up-and-show-off-kick-off/
Fortran Tools Hack Week
We’re excited to announce an upcoming hackathon focused on the open-source Fortran tools ecosystem, where we’ll be aiming to contribute to testing frameworks, documentation generators, debuggers, code formatters, linters, and more. The event will take place online between May 27th and May 30th with flexible participation, so attendees can dedicate as much or as little time as they choose. An event schedule may be found on the sign-up form.
Registration for Durham HPC Days has opened!
We are happy to announce the 2025 Durham HPC Days in the week predating the ISC Conference (June 2 – June 7) in Hamburg.
Our 2025 theme focuses on the fact that there is, despite people claiming different things, no gap between HPC and AI: HPC underpins progress in both simulations – high-performance and high throughput – and AI. We are all in the same boat. However, different communities have different needs how the HPC infrastructure is used and provided, and they also affect each other.
Join us for a week of tutorials, talks, workshops, discussions and networking!
On the Saturday, we will offer two walking options as social event: a short walk which will bring you back to Durham by midday, and a longer hike for those who would like to spend the whole day in the North East of England. The hikes will likely be along Hadrian’s Wall (details to be confirmed).
Apply now — Research Software Maintenance Fund Open for Expressions of Interest
The Software Sustainability Institute is excited to announce that the Research Software Maintenance Fund (RSMF) is now open for expressions of interest. Supported by UKRI, this funding opportunity aims to support the sustainability of critical research software, ensuring it remains reliable and accessible.
Deadline: Friday 30 May 2025, 16:00 BST
Apply now via GoodGrants: https://digitalresearchinfrastructure.grantplatform.com/
For eligibility and details, visit the RSMF website: https://www.software.ac.uk/research-software-maintenance-fund/round-1
For enquiries, please contact [email protected]
Research Software Catalog of the French Committee for Open Science before official opening
The French Committee for Open Science opened on Monday, the 14th of April, its research software catalogue. The aim of this catalogue is to list software developed in French research laboratories. This is a beta version which should rapidly be enhanced with new entries and new functionalities and can be found here.
Awareness of FAIR and FAIR4RS among international research software funders
To gauge FAIR4RS’s status, international research funders involved in supporting research software were surveyed about their awareness of the concept. The survey reveals much greater familiarity with the more established FAIR principles for data (73% ‘extremely familiar’) than FAIR4RS (33% ‘extremely familiar’).
Read the survey and results here.
Cycling on the Freeway: The Perilous State of Open-Source Neuroscience Software
This paper argues that the existing ecosystem of neuroscientific open-source software is brittle, and discusses why and how the neuroscience community needs to come together to ensure a healthy software ecosystem to the benefit of all.
Bringing History to Life: Launch of an Oral History Website
University of Manchester Research Software Engineers have worked with researchers from the School of Arts, Languages and Culture to develop a website that provides open access to a unique oral history archive, exploring Northern Irish migration to Great Britain during and after the Troubles.
https://research-it.manchester.ac.uk/news/2025/03/21/oral-history-website
Society Updates
Yo Yehudi joined the Society of RSE as a trustee in September 2024, taking on the role of Vice-Treasurer and joining the EDIA working group. Yo made the difficult decision to step down from their trustee role in January and we would like to take the opportunity here to thank them for their valued contributions whilst in the trustee role and their continued contributions to the RSE community.
Remember, the Society has a number of events, initiatives and resources that you might want to check out. These are linked below.
| Special Interest Groups | We have six Special Interest Groups being run by our community members, and supported by the Society. Check out our SIGs page to get involved (or start your own!). |
| Events and Initiatives Fund | The Society has Events and Initiatives funding to provide support for events and initiatives which support our mission statement and charitable objectives. |
| Membership | Not yet a member? Why not join us today? We welcome anyone who supports our mission, whether or not they are employed as RSEs. |
| 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. |
| Zenodo | We have a Community Zenodo Account for RSEs in the community to share publications about RSE. |
| Podcasts | Code for Thought is back and now in its ninth season, with episodes now in English, German and French. It is available on all major podcast directories, including YouTube. |
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