The Society of Research Software Engineering was founded on the belief that a world which relies on software must recognise the people who develop it.
A Research Software Engineer (RSE) combines professional software engineering expertise with an intimate understanding of research.
The Society emerged from the successful grass-roots RSE movement and is the successor to the UK RSE Association. See the history page for the full story.
The Society was founded in 2019 as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation. See the governance page for details.
Our mission is to establish a research environment that recognises the vital role of software in research. We work to increase software skills across everyone in research, to promote collaboration between researchers and software experts, and to support the creation of an academic career path for Research Software Engineers.
Membership to the Society is open to anyone, from anywhere in the world as we have clarified in our Membership Terms and Conditions.
Question: Is the vision for the Society of Research Software Engineering to be the umbrella for RSEs internationally?
Answer: No, not at all. The International Council of RSE Associations was formed to create an international umbrella so that we have the opportunity to communicate with each other and know what is going on. Two representatives from each national association sit on this council and it meets regularly.
The Society is the initial home for those who don’t yet have their own national association and everyone is very welcome to join our slack space. We believe that we have a joint role of being the UK national association and international home for people that don’t yet have a national (to them) association. The trustees and other long-standing community members are ready and willing to help new national associations form and get up and running.
Q: Should non UK citizens join their national association and also join the Society?
A: It could make sense for them to join as many groups as would be useful to them. If they wanted to take advantage of the membership benefits offered by the Society to its members then yes why not!
Q: Are they automatically a member of the Society of Research Software Engineering if they are a member of their local association?
A: No, unfortunately not. They’d need to join both separately.
Q: Is there a wider RSE interest group that people can join, whether they are members of the Society or not?
A: Yes! We have the RSE Slack space and everyone is welcome from around the world, member and non members, RSE and RSE adjacent roles.
We believe this is the natural international gathering place for most RSEs and RSE adjacent roles but some national associations don’t like slack so have set up their own online gathering place but some of their founding members are very active here too.
If you have any further questions that we haven’t covered here, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the trustee board [email protected]
