The origins and future of Research Software Engineering
3 November 2020 - NSF Cyberinfrastructure Strategy Committee @sjh5000 ORCID: 0000-0002-6809-5195
By Simon Hettrick
These slides: http://bit.ly/2TOl9Q5
Focus was on providing access to software engineering
Software
Training
Community
Policy
Providing software-engineering expertise
Growing a training community
Collecting and using evidence to improve policies
Increasing recognition of software across domains
Outreach
Scaling up everything else
A short history
of RSE
These slides: http://bit.ly/2TOl9Q5
2012: birth of the name
2013: Campaign begins &
first RSE Group
1428
members
March 2019
2014: the UKRSE Association
2016: the RSE Conference
Australia/New Zealand: @rse_aunz
Belgium: @rse_be
Germany: @RSE_de
Netherlands: @nl_rse
Nordic: @nordic_rse
South Africa
UK: @ResearchSoftEng
USA: @us_rse
2017: internationalisation
2019: foundation
Why it worked
These slides: http://bit.ly/2TOl9Q5
Use
software
Fundamental to
results
Develop own code
69%
92%
56%
http://bit.ly/2TOkK01
RSE Groups at
29 organisations
http://bit.ly/RSEGroupsUK
Funders provided support
Research
Software
Engineering
Researcher
Software
Engineer
Researcher
developer
Research
Software
Engineer
Successes
These slides: http://bit.ly/2TOl9Q5
-
Significant growth of RSEs across the world
-
Growing support for the role across academia
-
Policymakers and funders supporting RSEs
-
The community is resilient, collaborative, democratic and active... but unpaid
Predictions
These slides: http://bit.ly/2TOl9Q5
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Pressure to change how research software is funded
-
Pressure to change how research impact is measured
-
More vital but unrecognised roles will mobilise
Thousands of people now contribute to a vital aspect of research from within a role that recognises their actual work
This is thanks to targeted funding for an unconventional area, the continued support of funders, and the hard work of hundreds of RSEs.
These slides: http://bit.ly/2TOl9Q5
Thank you!
@sjh5000
ORCID: 0000-0002-6809-5195
EPSRC Grant no: EP/S021779/1
Licence
© Simon Hettrick
These slides are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
These slides: http://bit.ly/2TOl9Q5