The HiRSE_PS 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 Preparatory Study of the Helmholz Platform for Research Software Engineering (HiRSE_PS).

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 the preparatory study, HiRSE_PS evaluates the core elements of the HiRSE concept and their interactions in practice over the funding period of two years. One work package deals 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 is 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. 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, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), and Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon.

For students, researchers and everyone interested in RSE, HiRSE_PS 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? Why the “_PS”? 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 organizational aspects, while the decentralized 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. 

With the help of the Innovation funds of Helmholtz Information HiRSE_PS tests this vision on a small scale from 2022. RSE will play a major role in the 5th Program-Oriented Funding period starting 2028 and if we want to keep what has been achieved so far with HiRSE_PS and JuRSE, a ramp-up phase from HiRSE_PS to HiRSE in 2028 is needed.