History of the RSE Conference

A brief history of the RSE movement

  • 2012 – The term “Research Software Engineer” or RSE was first coined (at an SSI workshop in Queen’s College, Oxford)
  • 2012–  First RSE Group founded at UCL
  • 2013 – First workshop for RSEs held in Oxford
  • 2014 – UK RSE Association established
  • 2015 – First RSE fellowships (awarded by EPSRC)
  • 2016 – First RSE conference (held in Manchester)
  • 2016 – German RSE Association comes together
  • 2017 – Dutch RSE Association launches
  • 2018 – Nordic RSE and US RSE Associations launch
  • 2018 – First of multiple RSE professors across the UK
  • 2019 – Belgian, Australian and New Zealand RSE Associations launch
  • 2019 – The Society of RSE was founded as a charitable incorporated organisation (replacing the UK RSE Association)

Previous RSECon events

The annual RSE conference is a major event bringing together RSEs from around the world. Let us take a look back at the conference over the years.

RSECon25

  • Programme Chair(s): Romain Thomas + Heather Ratcliffe
  • Location: University of Warwick
  • Dates: 5th – 7th September 2025
  • Website: https://rsecon25.society-rse.org/

RSECon25 has complementary twin themes: RSE and Research Excellence; RSE as Digital Research Infrastructure (DRI). These themes will interplay to show the critical role RSEs have as DRI and the skills they use to fulfil this role. 

RSECon24

RSECon aims to deliver a relevant, inclusive, and engaging conference experience for the RSE community, featuring a balanced and varied programme that caters to all roles and skill levels. We are committed to creating an environment where individuals from diverse backgrounds can fully participate and contribute.

RSECon23

For the first time, attendees were welcomed to the conference both in-person and online. To enable the organising committee to put together a coherent and compelling programme, they increased the number of submission categories and chose four themes: notably working with and as researchers, open science and open source, working with industry and commercialisation, and tooling for research software engineering.

RSECon2022

The organising committee received a record number of submissions, totalling 129, 64 of which were accepted. They also initiated a new tradition of an awards ceremony to recognise the achievements of three people over the past 12 months, and made recordings of all sessions freely available online to take a step towards a more inclusive and accessible conference.

SeptembRSE

The RSE community reunited online for SeptembRSE, which was an opportunity to meet and discuss the development and recognition of research software over the course of the month. The online sessions were a mix of keynotes, talks, panel discussions, workshops and community moments, forming an online celebration of research software engineering.

RSEConUK 2019

The conference was extended from two to three days, allowing for more sessions and colocated events, including an HPC Champions Workshop and Research Software Alliance (ReSA) drop-in session. It was also the first year an RSE Worldwide session was run, featuring speakers from US-RSE, DE-RSE and NL-RSE.

RSE Conference 2018

The organising committee sought to increase the number of attendees to approximately 300, ensuring an international mix, while providing a programme full of interesting talks, discussion sessions and practical workshops. James Grant and Andy Turner also organised a satellite event for RSEs involved in Tier-2/Regional HPC.

RSE Conference 2017

The conference featured a mix of talks, posters, discussion workshops and hands-on tutorials. All together these provided attendees with the opportunity to learn new skills, discuss the state of research software engineering, network and share knowledge.

RSE Conference 2016

The series of conferences was kicked off by the RSE Network, sponsored by EPSRC. It was the first conference to focus exclusively on the issues that affect people who write and use software in research, and the organising committee were keen to hear from people who may not typically attend conferences. Over the course of two days, attendees were able to listen to talks, as well as partake in workshops, a poster competition and the UKRSE AGM.