Simon Hettrick
Professor Simon Hettrick is Deputy Director of the Software Sustainability Institute, and a Director of the Southampton Research Software Group.
Research Software Engineers:
UK landscape
By Simon Hettrick
Software Sustainability Institute
30 January 2018 - RSE International Leaders meeting, London @sjh5000 ORCID: 0000-0002-6809-5195
A very brief history of Research Software Engineers
bit.ly/RSETalk2016
A not-so-brief history of Research Software Engineers
bit.ly/NotSoBriefRSE
RSE State of the Nation Report
doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.495360
History
These slides: bit.ly/IntRSE2018
When we started...
- Software widely used across all disciplines, but not recognised
- Many people writing software, but not as part of a software-development role
- Short-term contracts the norm
- Poor prospects for software developers
These slides: bit.ly/IntRSE2018
How we got started
- The Software Sustainability Institute provided funds, organisation and reach into the community
- There was an obvious return for the Institute, for research stakeholders
- There was a strong desire within the community to solve the problems that the RSE campaign aimed to address
- Foundation of a Research Software Group at UCL provided a model that others could emulate and use to persuade their own organisations
These slides: bit.ly/IntRSE2018
Early years
- An inclusive philosophy led us to include groups rather than spend time arguing about boundaries
- An informal organisation kept the barrier to entry low
- Significant interest from the community created successes that led to more interest
- Interest from funders - especially the EPSRC - promised future support
These slides: bit.ly/IntRSE2018
www.software.ac.uk/blog/2016-10-06-ten-reasons-be-research-software-engineer
UK RSE Association
30 Jan 2018: 1034 members
These slides: bit.ly/IntRSE2018
Developing the community
- EPSRC invested £3M in 2015 and then £4M in 2017 into an RSE Fellowship
- RSE Network provided central funds and organisation for the community
- RSE surveys began collecting data in 2016
- International interest initially from Canada and the US
- Growth of Research Software Groups
These slides: bit.ly/IntRSE2018
[1]: www.walkingrandomly.com/?p=6037
[2]: www.software.ac.uk/news/introducing-2017-epsrc-rse-fellows
These slides: bit.ly/IntRSE2018
github.com/softwaresaved/international-survey
These slides: bit.ly/IntRSE2018
RSE Conference
These slides: bit.ly/IntRSE2018
ukrse.github.io/conf2016 & rse.ac.uk/conf2017/
RSE Society
- We're too big to still be an informal organisation
- Need to disassociate from any one person or organisation
- Need to hold a budget and be able to employ staff
- Founding a Charitable Incorporated Organisation
- Registration in the next couple of months
These slides: bit.ly/IntRSE2018
...where we are now
- Large community with significant engagement in the campaign
- At least one model for sustainably employing RSEs in academia
- Good relationship with a number of UK research funders
- A large amount of information and metrics about research software engineering
- An excellent base on which we can collaborate with others
These slides: bit.ly/IntRSE2018
Research Software Engineers: UK landscape
By Simon Hettrick
Research Software Engineers: UK landscape
International RSE leaders meeting, 30 January 2018, Alan Turing Institute, London
