What is Research Software Engineering, why is it important and am I an RSE?
by Maria Broadbridge
A short history of research software engineering
The term Research Software Engineer (RSE) is still somewhat new in terms of academic timescales. Its beginnings date back to March 2012, when a small group met at Queen’s college Oxford and started a movement that grew rapidly over the following years into the spirited international community of Research Software Engineers that we know today. The initial challenge was to generate enough momentum to gather recognition for the newly coined name Research Software Engineer by a wider audience. Simon Hettrick, founding chair of the UK’s Association of Research Software Engineers and a passionate advocate for Research Software engineers writes in his blog post ‘A not-so-brief history of Research Software Engineers’: “Raising the profile of Research Software Engineers was not going to be straightforward. How do you draw attention to a role, when no one knows about it—not even the people who inhabit the role?”
But the first RSE workshop in 2013 laid the foundation for the formation of the UKRSE Association, which saw membership numbers growing steadily as more and more people identify as Research Software Engineers and join the community. Soon, Universities around the UK started forming Research Software Engineering groups, the first one at UCL. At the time of writing this blog post, the Society of Research Software Engineering reports that almost 30 groups have been set up across the UK (see a map here). The number is rising continuously.
Events for research software engineers grew in frequency and popularity. The most recent RSE conference, which is the main national annual event for Research Software engineers to gather, saw 350 delegates over 3 days in 2019. There is no doubt that the next conference, when it is possible to gather in large groups again, will see even more delegates, as the star of Research Software engineering continues to rise nationally and internationally.
What Research Software Engineers do and why it matters
Research Software Engineers are people who combine technical expertise with software and an intricate understanding of research. RSE and programming skills are becoming more and more integral to research across a multitude of disciplines.
Few research groups are large enough to support a Research Software Engineer working full time, but nearly all research groups require help from one. This is where Research Software Engineering groups come in: they form a sustainable community to help researchers to produce high quality research software by providing support, expertise and training in many aspects of software development.
Education and training in software skills are essential. Too often researchers, in particular early career researchers, have not had any formal education in these skills when joining the University and to do not have access to training and support. Research software engineering groups aim to change that, by providing training and facilitating an exchange of skills and resources within the community.
Am I an RSE?
UKRSE stipulates that, regardless of your formal job title, if you answer yes to many of the following questions, you are doing the work of a Research Software Engineer:
- Are you employed to develop software for research?
- Are you spending more time developing software than conducting research?
- Are you employed as a postdoctoral researcher, even though you predominantly work on software development?
- Are you the person who does computers in your research group?
- Are you sometimes not named on research papers despite playing a fundamental part in developing the software used to create them?
- Do you lack the metrics needed to progress your academic career, like papers and conference presentations, despite having made a significant contribution through software?
Many RSEs start out in academic career paths as researchers who spend time developing software to do their research. Other RSEs come from more conventional software-developing and programming backgrounds and join research groups with their expertise.
Do you think this is you? If yes, good news, as you’re reading this you’re already in the right place! If you feel curious, have a browse of our website. It’s still fairly new, but you’ll find some helpful information on there, namely our online training portfolio which is set to grow rapidly over the coming months and a collection of RSE community links. Do you want to keep up to date with new developments in RSE@UoR? You can join our monthly newsletter here. And here is the best bit: you can join us and help shape the community at RSE@UoR! Head over to the joining in page for more information, where you can join our RSE@UoR team on MS Teams or find out how to become a core member of our RSE Champions group. See you there!