The biannual RSE Leaders & Aspiring Leaders Meeting took place on Monday 15 June at the University of Durham. Hosted jointly by Durham University Advanced Research Computing, SocRSE’s Policy & Funding Working Group, and the RSE Leaders Network SIG, the event brought together members of the community to think about policy and advocacy for RSEs.

The event features a keynote from Dr Ian Hancox, Director of Research Technology and Technical Strategy at the University of Warwick and Co-Director for the UK Institute for Technical Skills and Strategy. Ian spoke about how the Technician Commitment has worked to influence policy and organisation culture to benefit technicians across the UK. He reflected on what has worked well and where there might be valuable overlaps with the RSE movement.

The afternoon featured several lightning talks, highlighting existing challenges for RSEs that a policy and funding strategy might look to address. Patrick Bos, an RSE from the University of Groningen, discussed how national structures in the Netherlands impact the ability of RSE work to be recognised within universities. Edwin Brown, an RSE at the University of Sheffield, discussed their RSE groups move from a service approach to a more collaborative model in response to researchers using generative AI coding assistants. Kirsty Pringle from EPCC shared information about work within the Green RSE SIG to develop a green RSE role description. And Austen Rainer from Queen’s University Belfast introduced the FortranFuture Network and discussed some of the plans they have to gather evidence that will improve their ability to advocate for Fortran users in the UK research ecosystem. 

This event marked the first step in the recently-launched Policy & Funding Working Group’s wider community consultation process to shape that group’s first output, a policy and funding strategy for the Society. Participants at the event reviewed the Society’s previous strategy from 2021 and reflected on where it might need to be updated in response to changing circumstances. 

Get Involved

If you want to get involved in the Society’s policy and funding work, please apply to join the working group. All are welcome – including those who might not have previous policy experience.

The next RSE leaders meeting will take place as a satellite event at RSECon in Sheffield on Tuesday 8 September. This event will focus on developing future leaders and both established and aspiring leaders are encouraged to attend. Register today!

If you are interested in hosting the 2027 RSE Leaders & Aspiring Leaders meeting, please get in touch with the SIG coordinators.