Welcome to the Society’s newsletter for October 2024. We’ve got some Society news, a chance to get involved with RSECon25 and updates from some community projects in Scotland.

Headlines

First, some news from the Society and some updates on the RSE Conference.

Meet your new Trustees

A new group of wonderful volunteers joined our Board of Trustees at RSECon24 in September.

• Thank you to outgoing trustees Matt Williams, Evelina Gabasova, Robin Nandi and Peter Schmitt.
• Welcome to Godwin Yeboah, Pip Grylls, Yo Yehudi, Abie Alexander-Ikwue and Samantha Ahern.

A full list of trustees and their roles can be found on our governance page.

700th Member

Congratulations to Patricia Ternes, who became the 700th member of the Society. Patricia was presented with a special, limited edition t-shirt at the AGM at RSECon24 in September.

RSECon24

RSECon24 took place on the 3rd – 5th of September 2024 in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.

Thank you to everyone who joined us in person and online for our biggest conference yet! Photos from the event can be found in this album and recordings of the talks and other sessions will be available on the Society’s YouTube channel soon.

RSECon25 & Call for Committee Members

In case you missed the announcement, Pip Grylls and Heather Ratcliffe will host the ninth annual Research Software Engineering Conference (RSECon25) at the University of Warwick from the 9th – 11th September 2025. More information will follow once the conference committee. Speaking of which, the Call for Committee Members is still open until 3rd November, so there’s still time to get involved.

Community News & Events

This month, we have a couple of updates from Research Data Scotland (RDS).

UKRI RTP Network

We’re delighted to announce that the Society has officially supported three bids to UKRI from across the community for the Digital RTP Network Plus scheme. Best of luck to everyone who applied and we’ll keep you updated with any developments.

Researcher Access Service

RDS has launched the Researcher Access Service, a fully digitised, faster, and more efficient pathway for research projects in the public benefit. At launch, the service enables streamlined access to nine of Public Health Scotland’s most frequently requested datasets in areas such as mental health, maternity, cancer, accident and emergency, and more. RDS is an independent charity established in 2021 by the Scottish Government, working in partnership with organisations in Scotland and the UK to build on and transform key aspects of the data research system and make it faster and simpler to access public sector data for research.

Research Data Scotland Webinar

Want to find out how RDS is making it faster and simpler to do research that can improve lives? Join our public-friendly showcase webinar to learn more about our work. On Wednesday 2nd October (14:00 to 15:30), RDS colleagues will provide an update on some of RDS’s progress and impact so far, including the Researcher Access Service, synthetic data, and public engagement. This session is designed to be welcoming and approachable for everyone, so whether you’re a seasoned researcher or you’ve never interacted with data science before, everybody is invited.

For more information and to sign up, click here: https://www.researchdata.scot/news-and-insights/rds-showcase-webinar-2-october-2024.

Society Updates

Events and Initiatives Fund

Did you know that the Society has funding to provide financial support for events and initiatives which support our mission statement and charitable objectives? Learn more or apply for a grant here:  https://society-rse.org/policy-for-socrse-events-and-initiatives-grant/ 

Membership

Not yet a member? Why not join us today? Read about all the benefits of being a member on our website. We welcome anyone who supports our mission, whether or not they are employed as RSEs. 

Jobs

A reminder that if you are looking for RSE-related jobs, you can join the #jobs channel on the RSE Slack workspace or visit our vacancies page.

Zenodo

Zenodo is a popular publishing platform, and our community has two Zenodo groups.

• The Community Account is for RSEs in the community to share publications about RSE: https://zenodo.org/communities/rse/
• The Society Account is for Society publications, such as our annual report: https://zenodo.org/communities/socrse/

Podcasts

Code for Thought is back and now in its eighth season, with episodes now in English, German and French. It is available on all major podcast directories, including YouTube.

Follow Us

A reminder that we are on Mastodon @[email protected], and you can find all our other sites and social media links on our Linktree: https://linktr.ee/researchsofteng.

And remember, if you have any news or announcements you would like us to include in the newsletter, please let us know using this form.