The HiRSE Mission Statement

Contact at Forschungszentrum Jülich: Dr. Robert Speck

Project page: https://www.helmholtz-hirse.de/

JuRSE raises awareness, increases visibility and improves good practice for Research Software Engineering for students and researchers at Forschungszentrum Jülich. It also provides the point of contact for externals interested in this topic and supports the national and international RSE community through collaborations, joint events, projects, and the RSE online community platform.

While JuRSE has a strong focus on FZJ and its RSEs, it shares many of its goals and activities with the Joint Lab Helmholtz Information - Research Software Engineering (HiRSE).

The underlying HiRSE concept aims at the establishment of central activities in RSE and the targeted sustainable funding of strategically important codes by so-called Community Software Infrastructure (CSI) groups as mutually supportive aspects of a single entity.

In a first “preparatory study”, HiRSE_PS evaluated the core elements of the HiRSE concept and their interactions in practice over the funding period of three years. One work package dealt with the operation of CSI groups, in particular also for young codes, and a second one with consulting and networking. The goal of the preparatory study was the further refinement of the concept, which can then be rolled out to the entire Helmholtz Information, or, if desired, to the entire Helmholtz Association with high prospects of success and high efficiency. As of October 2024, HiRSE is now the (flexible) Joint Lab “Helmholtz Information - Research Software Engineering”. This project is currently funded by the Innovation Fund of Helmholtz Information of the Helmholtz Association as well as by the four participating partners Forschungszentrum Jülich, Karlsruher Institute of Technology (KIT), Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), and Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon.

For students, researchers and everyone interested in RSE, HiRSE offers many different activities focusing on modern software engineering methods in science, e.g. the HiRSE Seminar Series, Hackathons, an RSE Summer School, and the central website with further resources.

So, aren’t we done, then? Not quite. It is the HiRSE vision to acquire and provide sustainable, reliable and project-independent funding for (1) central community work and training activities such as hackathons, summer schools, live meetings, and (2) research software engineers within software teams in the different domains, from the community for the community. 

HiRSE proposes to implement this vision using a Hub and Spokes model within Helmholtz Information and the partnering institutions (see figure): The central hub takes care of the core RSE community, training and organisational aspects, while the decentralised RSEs, being part of the Community Software Infrastructure groups in their domains contribute knowledge, experience, ideas and help.

The hub is composed of local RSE hubs at the participating institutions, providing a basis for both independent, center-focused work and overarching research field aspects. The CSI groups and the hub members build a network of people and knowledge within the institutions and Helmholtz Information, fostering exchange of ideas, problems and solutions, experience, help, knowledge, as well as technology and tools.

In this broad and diverse environment, new standards and KPIs for software and software engineering can be defined and new tools for measuring and enabling them can be created. 

It is vital to retain and extend the achievements so far within HiRSE and JuRSE while at the same time progressing fluidly from the Joint Lab HiRSE concept to the ultimate goal of Research Software Engineering playing a major role as a fully-integrated theme in the 5th Program-Oriented Funding within Helmholtz Information.