July 2026

Welcome everyone to the JuRSE newsletter for July!

JuRSE (Jülich Research Software Engineering) is a grassroots community for all FZJ scientists and students who code and anyone interested in research software.

The purpose of this newsletter is to update you about JuRSE community initiatives at FZJ and some of the national and international activities in Research Software Engineering (RSE) and inspire you to get involved in the community. Please feel free to forward this to any colleagues who may be interested in this topic and in joining the JuRSE Community.

Quick ways you can get involved:

Join the RSE Rocketchat channel open to all FZJ staff
Join the national RSE Community on matrix hosted by the de-RSE Association.
JuRSE is now on Linkedin! Connect with us

JuRSE

'Introducing the Helmholtz Quality Indicator for Software Publications’

What is this?
A new mandatory Key Performance Indicator that evaluates software publications across Helmholtz. Starting from the PoF V reporting cycle in 2028, a new key performance indicator for research software will be formally considered in institutional reporting.

Who is affected?
Anyone who develops and publishes research software.

Why should you take time to understand this?
Understanding the upcoming reporting requirements now will help ensure that software publications can be properly documented and considered in future reporting cycles. Research assessment has been commonly accepted as using scientific publications but as research increasingly relies on software, research assessment is becoming broader. The Helmholtz Association is now taking research software publications into account in research assessment. Importantly, improving our PoF reporting by including research software publications may lead to more funding in the longer term. A similar initiative for research data will be launched soon.

To get more depth, visit our webpage for more information and the RSE Intranet page for a recording of the Helmholtz webinar. You can also reach out to the JuRSE team to discuss this in more detail.

Blog posts

RSE Careers at FZJ

RSE Careers now has a new landing page on the Forschungszentrum Jülich Website. You can find out more about Research Software Engineering at the FZJ as well as staying up to date on the latest vacancies on the pages below.
- EN: https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/careers/science-support/research-software-engineering-at-forschungszentrum-julich
- DE: https://www.fz-juelich.de/de/karriere/wissenschaftsunterstuetzung/research-software-engineering-am-forschungszentrum-juelich

Open Hours

We host Open Hours every Wednesday both in-person in the gegenüber lounge in the ZB and online. All are welcome to come and talk to us about anything. This is an opportunity to learn from each other and expand our collective knowledge. Always exciting to see and help with your projects.

Code of the Month

The JuRSE Team wants to shine a spotlight on the diverse and excellent research software that is being developed at Forschungszentrum Jülich. This month we have chosen to highlight CPlantBox, which is a functional-structural plant-soil modelling framework. It simulates the 3D architecture of a plant, couples carbon and water flow within the plant, water flow and solute transport in a 3D dynamic soil, as well as water and nutrient uptake and rhizodeposition. The work of this team showcases how research software is sometimes tied to very tangible everyday things. Read more here.

JuRSE Survey - We want to hear from you!

Are you coding in your research role at Forschungszentrum Jülich? We want to hear from you! The Jülich Research Software Engineering (JuRSE) team is reaching out to you to better understand your work, challenges, and needs. Your insights will directly shape the resources, services, and events we provide for our coding community at FZJ. Take the survey here.

Jobs at FZJ

We’re including some of the current vacancies that may be of interest.

DevOps Engineer for Identity and Access Management (JSC, Jülich)
DevOps and research infrastructure role combining identity and access management, service operations, software development and cloud-native technologies to support scientific communities across Germany and Europe.
To find out more or apply go to: https://recruiting.fz-juelich.de/en/jobposting/87df937c673b3b6b3b8efffcfdfd5ad2eb4ab4480/apply?ref=JuRSE-Newsletter

HiRSE

55^th HiRSE Seminar
On Thurdays, 9^th of July at 11 am Aditi Punetha from RWTH Aachen University will join the HiRSE Seminar Series to talk about “Exploring the Lifecycle of Research Software: Insights from a Literature Review and Empirical Study”. Find out more.
2026 Conference of the Barcelona Declaration on Open Research Information
This conference organized by the Barcelona Declaration, the Leibniz Association and the Helmholtz Open Science Office will be held in the Leibniz Association Headquarters in Berlin on 24 – 25 November. Find out more.

HiRSE is now on Linkedin! Connect with us

National Initiatives

Call for proposals:
“ScienceServe: Boosting Research Software at Helmholtz”
With this call Helmholtz explicitly place the development of research software at the centre of attention. The objective of this call is to support projects that substantially improve the quality, reusability, visibility, and long-term availability of scientific software solutions within Helmholtz.
The deadline for proposal submission is 14 August 2026.
Find out more.

HIDA mobility Program: The HIDA Mobility Program enables short-term research stays (1- 3 months) for all Helmholtz doctoral researchers and postdocs (employed at or affiliated with a Helmholtz Center), whose work is linked to (applied) data and information sciences. Applications are now being accepted on an ongoing basis. Find out more.

HIFIS: Did you know that HIFIS has many great resources available including software engineering consulting services? Find out more.

Helmholtz Research Software Directory: The Research Software Directory is where you can promote and discover research software from Helmholtz centres. After recent updates to the directory, you can now nominate yourself for a spotlight on their website to showcase your research software and they've introduced some more functionality to make integration easier. Check out the details here: https://helmholtz.software/page/hifis-software-spotlights

Events

JuliaCon 2026
JuliaCon Global 2026 will be an in-person conference held in Mainz, Germany, 10-15 August 2026. JuliaCon will include talks from from developers and researchers from industry and academia covering a wide range of topics such as biology, economics, data analytics, and software engineering best practices.
For more go to: https://juliacon.org/2026/

Swiss RSE Annual Conference
Join the Swiss Research Software Engineering (RSE) Annual Conference 2026, a full-day event bringing together RSEs from academia, research, and industry. The conference includes keynotes, presentations, and a poster/demo session, focusing on: RSE for Open Research Data (ORD) and Open Science, AI in Research Software Engineering & RSE Community (sharing experiences and building connections) The event will be held at the ETH Zurich (CAB Building) on the 31 August 2026
Registration details and call for proposals coming soon at https://rse.swiss/swiss_rse_day/

International Research Software Conference (IRSC)
The event focuses on advancing strategic coordination, sustainability, and cross-boundary collaboration in the research software community. It will promote global collaboration, share community experiences and best practices, and aim to influence funding, policy, and research priorities while highlighting leadership in related open science movements. The event will take place online and in-person on the 7^th – 8^th of September in Sheffield, UK. To find out more go to: https://www.researchsoft.org/irsc/

RSECon26
The event provides a forum to share ideas, debate strategies, and develop collective visions for the future of Research Software Engineering. It will centre around two key themes: “RSEs as part of the research journey” and “Enhancing credit and reproducibility: research software quality, performance and evidence”.
The event will be held in Sheffield, UK on the 9-11 September 2026.
To find out more go to: https://rsecon26.society-rse.org/

Workshop on AI-supported Research Software Engineering
This is a satellite workshop on the 22^nd and 23^rd of September right before the collaborations workshop hosted in Göttingen. The interactive workshop addresses the many challenges and opportunities faced by research software engineers in AI-supported research software development.
To find out more go to: https://events.hifis.net/event/3249/page/968-workshop-on-ai-supported-research-software-engineering

deRSE Collaborations Workshop
The workshop will take place from the 23 - 25 September in Göttingen. The event will feature interactive, collaborative formats which give participants room for discussions and provides place for collaborations.
The call for contribution is open until the 15 April.
See here for more: https://events.hifis.net/event/3249/overview

22nd IEEE International Conference on eScience
On the 28 September – 2 October the IEEE eScience brings together leading interdisciplinary research communities, developers, and users of eScience applications and enabling IT technologies in Naples, Italy. The 22nd IEEE International Conference on eScience is co-located with the 7th Global Research Platform Workshop (7GRP).
To find out more go to: https://www.escience-conference.org/2026/

2026 DASH / IHDEA Meeting
The DASH (Data Analysis and Software in Heliophysics) and IHDEA (International Heliophysics Data Environment Alliance) meetings bring together scientists and software developers working on data analysis, algorithms, community software, data systems, and standards across heliophysics - from the Sun to geospace and beyond. The event will be hostet by the Dublin Institute for advanced Studies (DIAS) in Dublin, Ireland on the 5-9 October.
For more see: https://dash.heliophysics.net/

USRSE’26
USRSE’26 with the theme “Advancing Science in the Age of AI” will be held in San Jose, California on 19-21 October 2026. The calls for proposals and reviewers are open now.
For more go to: https://us-rse.org/usrse26/

GAMM FA RSE & RDM Annual Meeting 2026
The GAMM Activity Group on Research Software Engineering and Research Data Management in Mathematics & Mechanics will be hosting it’s annual meeting of the activity group, gathering everyone interested in RSE, RDM, Mathematics & Mechanics from Germany, Europe and beyond. The event will be held at the University in Cologne, Germany from the 23 to 24 November 2026.
The Call for Abstracts will be open until 25 October.
To find out more go to: https://events.hifis.net/event/3698/overview

Recommended Reading & Tools

Is AI ruining our skills? Early results are in — and they’re not good
(https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01947-1?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=37188488c5-nature-briefing-daily-20260619&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-33f35e09ea-50171232)
Establishing central Research Software Engineering units in German research institutions (https://f1000research.com/articles/15-719/v1)
New guide: Inclusivity and Accessibility in Recruitment (https://www.software.ac.uk/news/new-guide-inclusivity-and-accessibility-recruitment)
Hot research topics in AI and cybersecurity: insights from the Map of Science
(https://etoblog.substack.com/p/hot-research-topics-in-ai-and-cybersecurity)

Practical Guide for Sustaining Open Source Software in the Research Enterprise
(https://sr.ithaka.org/publications/sustaining-open-source-software-in-the-research-enterprise/#practical-guide-for-sustaining-open-source-software-in-the-research-enterprise)
Designing and implementing a comprehensive research software engineer career ladder: A case study from Princeton University
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167739X26002086?via%3Dihub)
RSE Survey Data Release
(https://www.software.ac.uk/news/rse-survey-data-release?mc_cid=877e801177&mc_eid=40c4afcd40)
New Guide: Using AI for Humanities Research Software
(https://www.software.ac.uk/news/new-guide-using-ai-humanities-research-software?mc_cid=8fb95cb7e1&mc_eid=1c5e6bf26)

RSE Podcast Episodes

“When Bits Rot” – with C McKean, L Talboom, A Page-Mitchell, Code for Thought
https://codeforthought.buzzsprout.com/1326658/episodes/19221837-en-when-bits-rot-with-c-mckean-l-talboom-a-page-mitchell
“¿Qué es la ingeniería de software de investigación?” – Code for Thought (Spanish episode)
https://codeforthought.buzzsprout.com/1326658/episodes/19292569-es-que-es-la-ingenieria-de-software-de-investigacion
“What happened to agile development? – A review” – with Dave Thomas, Code for Thought
https://codeforthought.buzzsprout.com/1326658/episodes/19292687-en-what-happened-to-agile-development-a-review-with-dave-thomas
“ByteSized: Security by Design - Secure Data Principles for Digital Research” – with E Sheppard, M Hardaker, Code for Thought
https://codeforthought.buzzsprout.com/1326658/episodes/19335251-en-bytesized-security-by-design-secure-data-principles-for-digital-research-with-e-sheppard-m-hardakerde

Further Training Opportunities

HiDA Training courses

There are lots of courses available to you for free from Helmholtz Information & Data Science Academy (HIDA) so check out what's available: https://www.helmholtz-hida.de/course-catalog/en/

Training at FZJ:

Introduction to Parallel Programming with MPI and OpenMP (training course, on-site)

Instructors: Ilya Zhukov, Jolanta Zjupa, Junxian Chew, Michael Knobloch, Jan Andre Reuter

Dates: 10-14 August 2026, 09:00-16:30 each day

Venue: JSC, Ausbildungsraum 1, building 16.3, room 213a

Abstract: https://go.fzj.de/2026-mpi-intro-interm

Registration until 27 July 2026: https://indico3-jsc.fz-juelich.de/event/291/registrations/221/

Workshop on Machine Learning for Earth System Modelling

Supported by: CESOC, ECMWF, the TRA Modelling at the University of Bonn, JSC, University of Cologne

Dates: 24-26 August 2026

Venue: Universitätsclub Bonn and online

Abstract: https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/jsc/news/events/2026/workshop-machine-learning-for-earth-system-modelling