October 2026

Welcome everyone to the JuRSE newsletter for October!

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

NEW! Networking space:

Join us on Matrix! RSE team have joined forces with Research Data Management to create a FAIR Space which stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable research practice.

Create a Matrix account at https://element.fz-juelich.de/ if you haven’t already
Search for FAIR space, join the FAIR Community
Join rooms for RSE, RDM and more

There you’ll keep up to date on the latest news, events and get involved in discussions on RSE, RDM and other FAIR topics.

Join the national RSE Community on matrix (https://matrix.to/#/#de-rse.org:matrix.org) hosted by the de-RSE Association.
JuRSE is also on Linkedin! Connect with us https://www.linkedin.com/company/jurse/

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JuRSE

Open Hours

This month, the hot topic in our Open Hour was everybody’s hot topic: which AI tools to use for coding and what we’re allowed to do. And yes, Blablador can be used for production and is not just a niche. We also discussed best practices in general and for licensing in particular.

We host Open Hours every Wednesday, both in-person at 11:00 in the Gegenüber Lounge in the ZB and at 14:00 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. We look forward to seeing you and helping you with your work. https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/rse/community-initiatives/jurse-open-hours

Code of the Month

The JuRSE Team wants to shine a spotlight on the diverse and excellent research software being developed at Forschungszentrum Jülich. Each month we highlight a code from Forschungszentrum Jülich, and this month’s code is LLview, developed at the Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC). LLview is a set of software components to monitor supercomputing clusters controlled by a resource manager and scheduler system such as Slurm. It provides detailed information on individual jobs, supports visualization of benchmarking data, and can deliver job statistics, comprehensive performance reports, and results of continuous benchmarking runs. This software has come a long way, from a necessity to a flagship. Today, it is open source, generalizable, and can be adapted to any system. This is yet another great example of research software supporting research. Learn more here: https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/rse/community-initiatives/jurse-code-of-the-month/october-2026

Blog posts

“Declaring AI usage in your code” - https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/rse/the_latest/declaring-ai-usage-in-your-code

Two members of the JuRSE team, Robert Speck and Claire Wyatt, have been elected to leadership roles on the de-RSE board. Read more here: https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/rse/the_latest/jurse-team-members-join-the-de-rse-board

Jobs at FZJ

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

Research Software Engineer – AI and Earth Observation (JSC, Jülich)

Job posting: https://recruiting.fz-juelich.de/w1z19
Application: https://recruiting.fz-juelich.de/mxwyx

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HiRSE

HiRSE is on Linkedin! Connect with us - https://www.linkedin.com/company/hirse

Upcoming HiRSE seminar
On Thursday, 22nd October at 16:00 CEST, Dr. Peter Pirkelbauer from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Center for Applied Scientific Computing will join us at the HiRSE Seminar Series to talk about “CompilerGPT: Leveraging Large Language Models to Analyze and Act on Compiler Optimization Reports” More information here: https://www.helmholtz-hirse.de/series/2026_10_22-seminar_57.html

In Case You Missed It: HiRSE ‘Summer of AI for RSE’ - The HiRSE ‘Summer of AI for RSE’ brings together a series of talks exploring different aspects of AI in research software engineering, including ethics, training, AI-generated pull requests in open source projects, and RDM tools. With AI increasingly shaping research software development, the series explores how RSEs can understand and effectively integrate these technologies into their work. For the full series and individual talks, visit: https://www.youtube.com/@Helmholtz_Platform_for_RSE

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Helmholtz News

Helmholtz Software Award 2026 - The Helmholtz Software Award recognizes outstanding research software and the people who develop it, with prizes for scientific originality, sustainability, and promising newcomers. The 2026 winners are Chemotion (Scientific Originality Prize), developed at KIT; ASPECT (Sustainability Prize), developed at GEOMAR and GFZ; and TrixiParticles (Newcomer Prize), developed at HEREON. Learn more here: https://os.helmholtz.de/en/open-research-software/helmholtz-software-award/#c13750

Helmholtz AI Assistant - The Helmholtz AI Assistant is an automated code-review and improvement bot for your GitLab projects, powered by PR-Agent. Once connected, it reviews and improves every merge request (MR) by posting inline suggestions, answering questions, preparing a changelog entry or adding documentation using configurable slash commands (similar to GitLab quick actions). Check it out here: https://hifis.net/doc/software/gitlab/ai-integration/

HIFIS: Did you know that HIFIS has many great resources available including software engineering consulting services? To find out more go to: https://www.hifis.net/services/software-overview/

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

Helmholtz Software Quality Indicator: And now you can evaluate your software using the task group’s criteria catalogue directly on helmholtz.software - https://hifis.net/announcement/2026/07/07/indicator-in-rsd/

Upcoming HIDA courses and Events: See the course catalogue for all the courses - https://www.helmholtz-hida.de/course-catalog/en/

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Local & National Initiatives

From the FutuRSI project:

RSE Survey Results for Germany. The results are in! You can now explore four years of International RSE Survey results for Germany using a new tool created by FutuRSI, making it easier to explore country-specific data and trends over time. For more information, visit: https://www.futursi.de/rse-survey/
Two new reports from FutuRSI that talk about the community feedback we've received for a National Research Software Institution from interviews and the international RSE survey. We're really pleased to see so much positive support for a coordinating body. Read up on more details via the links below:

Report on Community Feedback No. 1 - 'Strategic Conditions for Establishing a National Research Software Institution'. This report summarises the findings of several structured qualitative interviews. https://zenodo.org/records/22255704
Report on Community Feedback No. 2 - 'Perspectives of Germany’s RSE Community from the International RSE Survey'. This report synthesises feedback from the community via the International RSE Survey regarding the potential establishment of a national research software institution. https://zenodo.org/records/22743816

Jülich RDM Challenges 2026–27 - The Jülich RDM Challenges 2026–27 call is now open, offering funding for projects that address practical research data management needs. This is also highly relevant to RSEs: research data management and research software are closely connected, particularly around reproducibility, data workflows, automation, and sustainable tools. RSEs may have an important role to play in developing solutions to these challenges. Application deadline: 23 November. Learn more about the call: https://intranet.fz-juelich.de/en/topics/rdm/on-campus/rdm-challenge-projects

Registration for FZJ’s annual Open Science Week is now open. From 19-22 October you can listen in on online talks covering Open Science, Open Access, RDM, RSE, and more. Register and find more information here.

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Events

AI, Good Scientific Practice & AI Disclosure - As AI becomes part of research workflows, questions around when AI can be used and how its use should be disclosed are becoming increasingly important. In this short online talk, Johannes Schneider from the Helmholtz Open Science Office will discuss these questions and introduce emerging standards for documenting and disclosing AI use in research. 27 October 2026, 10:30–11:00 CET, online and open to all, in English. For more information and registration, visit: https://os.helmholtz.de/detail/ai-good-scientific-practice-ai-use-and-disclosure/

The HPSF: Building the Future of High-Performance Software - This online webinar introduces the High Performance Software Foundation (HPSF) and its work supporting open-source HPC software through initiatives including CI/CD, benchmarking, training, and packaging. 28 October 2026, 18:00–19:00 CET. For more information and registration, visit: https://ideas-productivity.org/events/hpcbp-101-hpsf

EVERSE Stakeholder Day - Registrations are now open for the EVERSE Stakeholder Day, taking place 24 November 2026 in Brussels. The event will bring together researchers, Research Software Engineers, infrastructure providers, funders, policymakers and community leaders to discuss how research software can be developed, maintained, recognised and valued within the research ecosystem. Topics will include software as a scientific output, credit and career pathways, and collaboration across EOSC initiatives. Places are limited to around 40 attendees and allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information and to register, visit: https://indico.cern.ch/event/1682301/

RSE-HPC 2026 - RSE-HPC 2026 brings together Research Software Engineers and HPC professionals to share approaches, tools, and experiences at the intersection of research software and high-performance computing. The event includes an online component, making it possible to participate remotely. For more information and registration, visit: https://us-rse.org/rse-hpc-2026/

Open Science Retreat 2026 - The Open Science Retreat 2026 brings together researchers and research support professionals for a week of discussions, workshops, collaboration, and exchange around Open Science. Registration is now open, the retreat takes place 7–11 April 2026 at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales. For more information and to apply, visit: https://events.digital-research.academy/event/111/

SERS 2027: Software Engineering and Research Software - The 2nd International Workshop on Software Engineering and Research Software (SERS 2027) will take place on 27 April 2027 in Dublin, bringing together software engineering researchers and Research Software Engineers to explore shared challenges, opportunities for collaboration, and the application of software engineering practices in research software. The Call for Papers is now open for extended abstracts of up to four pages. For more information and submission details, visit: https://conf.researchr.org/home/icse-2027/sers-2027

Get Involved with deRSE27 - The Program Committee for deRSE27, the 7th Conference for Research Software Engineering in Germany, is looking for volunteers to help shape a diverse and engaging conference programme. PC members review submissions, help shape the review process, promote the conference, and can take on roles such as session chairs and mentors. For more information or to join the Program Committee, complete the short form: https://survey.academiccloud.de/f/451941?lang=en

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