November 2024

Welcome everyone to the JuRSE newsletter! JuRSE (Jülich Research Software Engineering) is a grassroots community for all FZJ scientists and students who code and/or anyone interested in research software. (https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/rse). 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.

Please feel free to forward this to any colleagues who may be interested in this topic and in joining the JuRSE Community.

Did you know that there is an RSE Rocketchat channel open to all FZJ staff? You can join it here https://chat.fz-juelich.de/invite/krTNBT

JuRSE news

Anaconda Update
As some of you may have heard, Anaconda changed their Terms of Service (ToS) in 2020, insisting that “government entities and non-profit entities with over 200 employees or contractors” must pay. That includes FZJ, no matter how many use this service. Once a single person from FZJ uses their channel, FZJ would be obliged to pay.  Find out more about this and the alternatives available in our updated article:https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/rse/the_latest/the-anaconda-is-squeezing-us 

Open Hours (every Wednesday - https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/rse/community-initiatives/jurse-open-hours)
In November, we will be hosting our Open Hours as usual on Wednesdays and all are welcome to come and talk to us about anything but in particular the Anaconda issue (above).  This is an opportunity to learn from each other and expand our collective knowledge so everyone is welcome to join.

JuRSE Travel Grants
Are you interested in engaging with RSEs around the world, listening to what they are up to, or in presenting your own RSE work? You want to attend a dedicated RSE meeting, but there is no money in the pot for this?

JuRSE has got you covered! JuRSE is awarding travel grants for deRSE conferences, RSECon, and even US-RSE. We want to enable students, PhD students, postdocs, researchers, and RSEs from FZJ to show how they are doing RSE, to let them contribute to discussions about research software, and to make them part of a larger, nation- and worldwide community.

The call for travel grants is now open for deRSE25, the German RSE Conference taking place in February 2025 in Karlsruhe (more info on deRSE25 at the link below under National Initiatives). https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/rse/community-initiatives/jurse-travel-grants

JuRSE Training Initiative: let us know what you need! We’re looking to develop training courses in research software engineering for researchers and students who code and would like to know what topics and formats would be useful to you. Let us know by emailing cl.wyatt@fz-juelich.de.

JuRSE Code of the Month
The JuRSE Team want to shine a spotlight on the diverse and excellent research software that is being primarily developed at Forschungszentrum Jülich and to do this we’re showcasing one research software a month.

November’s Code of the Month is FLEUR. It’s a feature-full, freely available FLAPW (full-potential linearized augmented-plane-wave) code, based on density-functional theory. This highly precise all-electron approach is universally applicable to all atoms of the periodic table and to systems with compact as well as open structures.

Click through to our website (https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/rse/community-initiatives/jurse-code-of-the-month) to find out what the JuRSE team like about this software.

International RSE Day
The International RSE Day raises awareness for the increasing relevance of research software engineering and the importance of good research software in academia.  Around the world, it aims to celebrate those who code in science and research whatever their job title. The day falls on the second Thursday in October each year and was created in 2021 by the International RSE Council https://researchsoftware.org/council.html

This year JuRSE celebrated by handing out sweets and flyers in the Seecasino on the 10th October and hopefully more people learnt about this community and have joined us.

HiRSE News

The JuRSE team work closely with the HiRSE project so we include their news here too.https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/rse/collaborations/hirse_ps 

Promoting research software: Made in Germany
We now have over 60 codes in this initiative now. Check out the codes that are already taking part in this campaign: - https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/rse/community-initiatives/the-hirse-code-promotion 

Researchers, postdocs, and students at German universities and research centres write great research software. The HiRSE team wants to make that more visible by bringing your software to the attention of the RSE Community and beyond. We’re looking for research software created, extended and/or maintained by people working at German institutions to join our latest initiative. This is not meant exclusively, we of course welcome also software written by international teams, as long as there is a substantial contribution coming from Germany.

Here is our offer: You provide us with the details of your software using our form https://go.fzj.de/research_software_promotion and we'll create your promo slide that will be shown ahead of a HiRSE Seminar and during HiRSE event breaks. Also, we will create a video out of all these slides and put it on the HiRSE YouTube channel. If you have more ideas where this slide can be used, feel free to let us know (and use it yourself, of course)!  If you have any questions or would like to suggest a project that is not your own, please do not hesitate to contact us under hirse@fz-juelich.de.

National Initiatives

HIDA Training courses
Check out all the relevant courses for research software engineering on the HIDA course catalogue: https://www.helmholtz-hida.de/course-catalog/en/ 

Focus Session "Innovations in Research Software Engineering"
The organisers of this session are excited to invite you to submit an abstract for this event taking place at the upcoming Spring Meeting of the German Physical Society (DPG), Regensburg March 16 - 21. This session will highlight developments, tools, and methodologies in research software engineering that are driving advancements in physics, especially in biological physics. Whether you are developing new software solutions, applying computational tools to biological systems, or contributing to open-source projects that support research, we welcome your contributions.

Submit your abstract by December 1st  here:  https://www.dpg-tagung.de/r25/submission.html?language=en  Choose "BP: Biological Physics Division" and afterwards our Focus Session from the "Topic" list. You may also add "research software engineering" to your list of keywords.

More information about the conference can be found here:  https://regensburg25.dpg-tagungen.de/ Don’t miss this opportunity to share your work and connect with fellow researchers at the forefront of research software engineering!

Promoting sustainable data practices and infrastructures in biodiversity science
The DFG-sponsored project “Promoting sustainable data practices and infrastructures in biodiversity science” invites data managers working with biodiversity data to an online focus group on licensing biodiversity science data in the EU.

 https://www.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/en/science/sustainable-data-practices-and-infrastructures-biodiversity-science 

The project is based at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin - Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science and it is carried out in partnership with the following organisations working in biodiversity informatics and the management of natural history collections: NFDI4Biodiversity, DiSSCo, GBIF and TDWG.

The aim of the focus group is to discuss the day-to-day practice of data managers in relation to data licensing, the institutional policies they follow, and how the evolving landscape of legislations on digital products and services in the European Union is affecting data licensing choices in biodiversity research.

The focus group will be held in Zoom on Tuesday 26th November 2024, 10am-1pm. The event will be held in English.

If you wish to take part in the focus group, please write a message to giuditta.parolini@mfn.berlin by 4th October 2024 providing some information about your experience with biodiversity data and telling them why you are interested in the event. The number of participants is limited to allow everyone to actively contribute to the discussion.

 International Initiatives

Towards an International Research Software Conference: Join the Community Consultation
The Research Software Alliance (ReSA) is seeking input to shape the inaugural international research software conference, which aims to foster collaboration across diverse communities. Your feedback is essential for a conference that truly reflects your needs and priorities! For details, visit  researchsoft.org/events or contact  info@researchsoft.org.

Upcoming events

deRSE25
The 5th conference for Research Software Engineering in Germany is hosted by KIT in Karlsruhe and takes place in February 2025 and the call for submissions is still open. The deadline was extended to the 18th November.  More info here on the conference and how to submit a contribution to the programme: https://events.hifis.net/event/1741/ and don’t forget that you can apply for a travel grant from JuRSE https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/rse/community-initiatives/jurse-travel-grants

RSE podcast episodes

Last Modified: 11.06.2025