Welcome to the July newsletter from The Society of Research Software Engineering! Our bi-monthly newsletter announces new Society initiatives, gathers RSE news, events, blogs, papers and anything else interesting and relevant together in one place. If you would like to add an item or suggest a new section to the next newsletter, submit it via this short form or get in touch with Claire Wyatt, RSE Community Manager.

Newsletter Contents:
>Society Update
>Announcements
>Case Studies
>Events
>Podcasts
>Blog posts
>RSE Worldwide

Society Updates

Membership

We are at over 614 paid-up members. Not yet a member? Why not join us?

Danke und Auf Wiedersehen Claire!

After 6 years, and an enormous amount of work, building the RSE UK Community, our community manager Claire Wyatt is leaving to move to Germany in September to work for the Forschungszentrum Juelich (https://www.fz-juelich.de/de) as their RSE Community Manager.

In Germany, Claire will be developing their RSE community within their 6000+ staff and representing FZJ at the national level as well as working closely with deRSE. It is a big loss to the UK community, but hopefully it will lead to even great collaboration between the UK and German communities. The society wishes Claire all the very best on this new adventure.

Trustees Needed! Nominations for trustees for the Society are now open!

If you’d like to get involved with the work of the Society, putting yourself forward as a trustee is one of best ways to have an impact. You can see all the details of what you need to do at https://society-rse.org/2022-trustee-elections-and-agm/

Please think about standing as a trustee.  We want every career stage represented on the board and full induction given so no previous trustee knowledge needed.

Society General Meeting

In July the Society held a general meeting to vote on constitutional changes. These were passed by community vote and extend the trustee term from 2 to 3 years, following a recommendation in our governance review by the NCVO. More details here.

Announcements 

RSECon2022

We are pleased to say that tickets for RSECon2022 are now sold out! The Conference committee are very busy preparing what is looking like a really exciting conference. We can’t wait to see the community come together in person again.

RSECon2022 – Program

The conference program is now online. Take a look and plan your conference.

RSECon2022 – Collocated Events

There are a number of collocated events for the RSECon2022. More details under events below.

RSE Leaders Meeting & Dinner – Monday 5th September 2022

Sign up for the meeting and/or dinner

We’re organising a colocated RSE Leaders meeting on Monday 5th September in Newcastle with Mark Turner, Head of Research Software Engineering at Newcastle hosting us at the Catalyst Building. 

For the first time at our annual conference, we’re really excited to invite you to a Leaders Dinner that evening in a rooftop restaurant, the SIX restaurant at the Baltic Art Gallery with 360 degree panoramic views of Newcastle and the River Tyne. 

The meeting will be a relaxed unconference style where anyone can suggest discussion topics during the lead up to the meeting and we will vote on the day which discussions go ahead. You can also ask for a presentation on a particular topic and we will try to find a leader who has experience in that area to give a short presentation. Maybe you’d like to know how a few leaders manage their teams projects and budgets? Would you like to see the software they’ve created or adapted? Or examples of grant writing – successful or otherwise! Let me (Claire) know in the sign up form or directly by email.  

We’ve got plenty of places so feel free to bring more than one representative from each group. This meeting, refreshments, lunch and dinner is completely free to all participants and is funded partly by the Society and partly from our conference sponsors. 

Society Annual General Meeting – Wednesday 7th September 2022

Colocated with the RSECon2022, the AGM will take place on Wednesday in the main auditoriam G41 at 5pm. All Welcome.

Call for Papers – RSE-HPC-2022 – Submission deadline is Friday, August 5!

We are excited to announce the Research Software Engineers in HPC Workshop (RSE-HPC-2022) to be held as part of SC22 (hybrid event, in Dallas, TX and virtually). This will be a half-day workshop 2:00pm-5:30pm CST (UTC-6), Sunday, November 13, 2022.

This workshop will bring together RSEs and allies involved in HPC, from all over the world, to grow the RSE community by establishing and strengthening professional networks of current RSEs and RSE leaders.  We’ll discuss the current activities and plans of national RSE organizations, discuss the needs of RSEs and RSE groups, and brainstorm ways RSE organizations can help address these.

We encourage prospective participants to submit position papers (limit of 2 pages, not counting references; no format prescribed) on topics related to RSE issues. Papers and discussion topics should be submitted using the submission website. The deadline for submissions is Friday, August 5, 2022, at 11:59 PM AoE (UTC-12). For more information, see the workshop website or contact the organizers.

NVIDIA Educator Programs

We are happy to announce that NVIDIA has agreed to make their educator programs (https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/training/educator-programs/) available to all SocRSE members, including free public workshops and the University Ambassador program. Please mention the RSE Society and Kevin McFall ([email protected]) in any program applications, and apply with an academic email address if available. NVIDIA is also planning to reserve spaces for SocRSE members in the GPU bootcamps – former SocRSE trustee Mozghan Kabiri Chimeh is working on this!”

We are pleased to announce that WHPC is on the lookout for it’s next Chair!

Are you a leader in #HPC who wants to take #diversityandequity in our field to the next level?  Then join us and help plan the next phase of our growth!  Applications and nominations are both welcome!  https://buff.ly/3BfW3ke

Case Studies

New case study – Alison Clarke

We have a new case study! Many thanks to Alison Clarke for this interesting case study about her career combining industry and research.

We’re looking for more case studies!

All the case studies to-date can be found at https://society-rse.org/careers/case-studies/.

We want to show all the shapes and forms that RSEs come in, and all the brilliant work they do and are looking for RSEs willing to work with us to put together case studies. We will send you a set of questions to answer (either career-focused or EDI focused, your choice), and are very happy to have a chat if you are unsure about something or need help writing up your answers. Email [email protected] if you are interested or have any questions.

Events

August

CarpentryCon 2022: Expanding Data Frontiers

We are excited to announce that registration is now open for CarpentryCon 2022: Expanding Data Frontiers happening from 1-12 August! We look forward to welcoming you at the event. CarpentryCon is an exciting – and free! – way to connect with The Carpentries community and “level up” data science skills.

Register to attend here – https://carpentrycon2022.eventbrite.com/

The event, taking place over two weeks in August, features sessions that will draw participation from across the globe. The programme will include:

• lesson development sprints
• professional and community skill building
• technical skill-ups, including tool tips for GitHub, Zoom, R, and Snakemake
• regional subcommunity updates
• updates on new curriculum development
• …and more.

Jean Golding Institute DATA COMPETITION using Open Data from Ordnance Survey with a £1000 cash prize!*

Due to demand we’re running another hybrid Q&A session for our data competition on 2nd Aug 2-3pm. Come along if you’re in Bristol, or attend on Zoom. Book here: https://bristol.ac.uk/golding/events/2022/a-map-with-a-view.html

We are looking for: apps, data visualisations, interactive notebooks or storymaps that use OS Open Data to help users discover personalised regions of interest using open geospatial data. You can enter individually or as a team. The deadline for submissions is midnight, Sunday 21st August 2022, so you need to get moving! Attend our Q&A session for more info: https://bristol.ac.uk/golding/events/2022/a-map-with-a-view.html

* Competition open to all, but you or your team need at least one University of Bristol member to be eligible for cash prizes. We can help pair you with folks at the uni if needed.

The 2022 OpenACC and Hackathons Summit kicks off on August 2nd with a full agenda. This year’s digital conference has an expanded focus, highlighting relevant modeling, simulation, and AI initiatives led by the Open Hackathons program as well as significant OpenACC use cases from astrophysics to materials modeling. The best part? Registration is completely FREE! https://bit.ly/3bl9lRs

September

RSECon2022 in Newcastle! Three Colocated Events below.

RSE Leaders Meeting & Dinner – Monday 5th September 2022 Sign up for the meeting and/or dinner

We’re organising a colocated RSE Leaders meeting on Monday 5th September in Newcastle with Mark Turner, Head of Research Software Engineering at Newcastle hosting us at the Catalyst Building. 

For the first time at our annual conference, we’re really excited to invite you to a Leaders Dinner that evening in a rooftop restaurant, the SIX restaurant at the Baltic Art Gallery with 360 degree panoramic views of Newcastle and the River Tyne. 

The meeting will be a relaxed unconference style where anyone can suggest discussion topics during the lead up to the meeting and we will vote on the day which discussions go ahead. You can also ask for a presentation on a particular topic and we will try to find a leader who has experience in that area to give a short presentation. Maybe you’d like to know how a few leaders manage their teams projects and budgets? Would you like to see the software they’ve created or adapted? Or examples of grant writing – successful or otherwise! Let me (Claire) know in the sign up form or directly by email.  

We’ve got plenty of places so feel free to bring more than one representative from each group. This meeting, refreshments, lunch and dinner is completely free to all participants and is funded partly by the Society and partly from our conference sponsors. 

Registration form for the Trusted Research Environment satellite meeting at RSECon 2022, please feel free to share with anyone you think is interested! It’s on Monday 5th Sep, there will be introductions and some presentations in the morning, then more informal discussions in the afternoon. However please feel free to make any other suggestions, and any offers of help are welcome! https://dundee.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/rse-2022-tre

Registration is now open for the HPC and RSE Workshop – ExCALIBUR RSEs meet HPC Champions on September 9th in Newcastle co-located with RSECon22. This event will be run in a hybrid fashion so you can attend in-person or online.

October

Workshop on “Hack the Hackathon: Shaping the Future of Hackathon Research and Practice, Volume 2” at the Flatiron Institute (New York, USA, NY) (and online)

We invite you to express your interest to attend our workshop titled: “Hack the Hackathon: Shaping the Future of Hackathon Research and Practice, Volume 2” during October 3 to 7, 2022. This will be a hybrid workshop combining virtual and in-person gatherings. The in-person meeting will be at the Flatiron Institute in New York,  NY, USA.

The  purpose of this workshop is to bring together researchers of different disciplines studying and organizing hackathons. We define hackathons as any time bounded collaborative events that aim to foster innovation, create technical solutions, support collaborative learning or connect communities. We will particularly focus on hackathons that create spaces for learning and collaboration within scientific disciplines. We invite hackathon organizers, practitioners and researchers to share the current state of hackathon  practice and research, and to discuss future challenges and new directions.

Please  visit our workshop registration form to sign up latest until July 31 2022:  https://forms.gle/Vy7pPnM8rKbLBBUv9

Registration for the Second US-RSE Virtual Workshop in September will open soon! The theme of the workshop is “Make it happen! Towards a diverse and sustainable future!” The workshop will feature talks, community events, and working group sessions. It will be held via Zoom and some parts, such as the talks, will be recorded and available after the workshop via the US-RSE YouTube channel. The workshop will be free but registration will be required.

November

We are excited to announce the Research Software Engineers in HPC Workshop (RSE-HPC-2022) to be held as part of SC22 (hybrid event, in Dallas, TX and virtually). This will be a half-day workshop 2:00pm-5:30pm CST (UTC-6), Sunday, November 13, 2022. This workshop will bring together RSEs and allies involved in HPC, from all over the world, to grow the RSE community by establishing and strengthening professional networks of current RSEs and RSE leaders.  We’ll discuss the current activities and plans of national RSE organizations, discuss the needs of RSEs and RSE groups, and brainstorm ways RSE organizations can help address these.

 We encourage prospective participants to submit position papers (limit of 2 pages, not counting references; no format prescribed) on topics related to RSE issues. Papers and discussion topics should be submitted using the submission website. The deadline for submissions is Friday, August 5, 2022, at 11:59 PM AoE (UTC-12). For more information, see the workshop website or contact the organizers.

Podcasts

Code For Thought

• Drones, shrubs and ecology https://tinyurl.com/3yfshcsk Listen to SSI Fellow Isla Myers-Smiths who tells us how they measure climate change in arctic ecosystems and the technical challenges involved.
• Teresa Gomez-Diaz from the University Gustave Eiffel in Paris takes us through open science, open software and the importance of software licensing (often forgotten by engineers). Peter Schmidt was excited to meet Teresa for his first “live” interview https://tinyurl.com/3dwt7k9d

Research Software Engineer Stories

• Vanessa Sochat talks with Ana Trisovic about data engineering! And y’all it’s super important for our #rseng community.  Ana tells us why https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/joys-and-challenges-with-big-research-data/id1481504497?i=1000569163599

Blog Posts

The volunteer committee from Women in HPC from ISC’22 is pleased to announce we’ve completed our recap blog of Hamburg WHPC events!  This piece includes a complete workshop re-cap and photos from our WHPC poster reception and Diversity Day.  Enjoy! https://womeninhpc.org/women-in-hpc-events/whpc-heads-to-isc22

RSE Landscape Review by Anika Cawthorn – The Research Software Engineering (RSE) Society EDIA subgroup recently surveyed the RSE community and the results of this survey are illustrated in the landscape review document.

RSE Worldwide

Awareness of the RSE role and the RSE community is growing around the world with new national groups being created all the time. In this section, we introduce these groups and raise awareness of their success. The Society supports new groups and collaborates with representatives from them on various initiatives (papers, international workshops).

In January 2021, the International Council of RSE Associations was founded as a forum to communicate and formally meet to ensure cohesion between associations and to provide a platform for open discussion around international issues and affairs.

(In alphabetical order)

RSSE Africa New!

AU/NZ RSE Group

Belgium Research Software Engineers Community

Join the (informal) chats of the Belgium Research Software Engineers community on https://gitter.im/be-rse/. 

Digital Research Alliance of Canada / Alliance de recherche numerique du Canada

Responsibility for Research Software in Canada is transitioning from CANARIE to The Alliance.

de-RSE

Dates for the joined monthly calls of the Open Science und Research Software Engineering communities can be found here.

NL RSE

New meet-ups are scheduled for NL RSE. Interested in proposing a workshop, talk, or some other contribution? Get in touch!

Nordic RSE

Research Software Hour…Hosted by members of the Nordic-RSE community, this continues weekly on Twitch. Research Software Hour is an online stream/show about scientific computing and research software. It is designed to provide the skills typically picked up via informal networks; each week, they do some combination of exploring new tools, analyzing and improving someone’s research code, and discussion. Watchers can take part and contribute code to us which they analyze and discuss on stream. They broadcast on Twitch Thursdays at 20:30 Oslo time / 21:30 Helsinki time.

US RSE

Upcoming and recurring events can be found on the events website!