Welcome to this special Society of Research Software Engineering Christmas message! There won’t be a society newsletter this month, and our bi-monthly newsletter will resume in January 2023. See below for our special Christmas message and some highlights of 2022.

It’s been a big year for the society, with the in person return of RSECon, the 10-year celebration of the term RSE and (sadly) the departure of our community manager: Claire Wyatt. It has been fantastic to see the community continue to grow and a broader recognition of the importance of research software engineering at Universities and with policymakers such as in the Goldacre Review. We hope everyone is able to take the time to rest and recuperate over the festive period. From all the Trustee’s, we wish you and your families a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and look forward to seeing you in 2023.

Looking ahead

Get involved with Society working groups

We need your help! The Society has a number of working groups that need volunteers that require a small commitment of a regular 30-minute meeting every two weeks. This is around Role Diversity and Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility (EDIA), these groups do really important work helping us understand and celebrate our community. If you’d be interested and want to help contribute however you can to making the Society the best it can be, get in touch with Jamie Quinn via [email protected].

A year in review

Membership

We are at 640 paid-up members. Not yet a member? Treat yourself this Christmas and join us! Our mailing list, which includes members and non-members, is at 1636.

Society Annual General Meeting – Wednesday 7th September 2022

This was held as part of RSECon22 at Newcastle in September. If you missed it, here is a recording of the event. At this meeting, we elected new trustees and bid farewell and thanks to those stepping down. Read all about it on our governance page. For the first time, the role of vice president is being shared between two (new) trustees.

RSECon2022

Our regular conference RSECon came to Newcastle in September 2022. With a turnout of ~350 people, it was the first in person conference held since 2019. A big thanks to the organising committee and Programme chair Mark Turner for making it such a success! Sessions were recorded are being uploaded to our YouTube channel as they are processed. You can find all currently released videos in the RSECon22 playlist on our YouTube channel or through this Twitter thread.

RSE Survey 2022

The Software Sustainability Institute conducted its annual International Survey of RSE. You can view the results for this year’s survey here.

10 Years of RSE

In March, we celebrates the 10 year anniversary of the term “research software engineer” being coined. Across the country groups took the opportunity to celebrate how far we’d come since then!

International RSE Day 2022

Thursday 13th October was the second ever International RSE Day, celebrating and raising awareness for Research Software Engineers across the world. We encouraged submissions from RSEs to showcase their work and publicized them on the day. Check out this thread of posts from Twitter. The Society also published a press release that was circulated to a variety of stakeholders highlighting the importance of RSE and their contribution to UK science. You can read our press release in full on the website.

Supporting the community

Through the Events and Initiatives fund we’ve supported the relaunches of the London and Midlands regional RSE communities, as well as providing funds to RSE Asia, Australia and New Zealand associations to launch a joint unconference. We also provided funding supporting workshops in South Africa.

So if you’ve got an idea for an event that about research software and supports the Society’s mission statement get in touch and let’s see if we can support making your event happen. You can submit a request via our Google form or contact us for a more informal discussion via [email protected].