International RSE Day 2024 - Thursday 10th October

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.

To celebrate International RSE Day at FZJ, we invited everyone to come meet some of the JuRSE team members at the Seecasino from 11:30 to 13:00 on Thursday 10th October and get obligation-free gummy bears!

Research Software Engineering is the application of skills and practices of software development in research to create more robust, manageable, and sustainable research software.

The primary difference between Research Software Engineering and traditional software engineering in computer science is the target metrics: Research Software aims to maximise the gain for scientific knowledge rather than software economics.

At FZJ, research software engineering is a daily job for primarily scientists, researchers, students, post docs and those who consider themselves research software engineers. Some scientific coders are researchers who spend most of their time developing software to progress their research. They enjoy this work and have invested in developing specialist skills so they continue to focus on software and its use in research. Others start off from a more conventional software-development background and are drawn to research by the challenge of using software to further research.

We welcome anyone who codes (any amount or skill level) and who adds to a research software into our community ‘JuRSE’. We’re a grass roots community looking to grow and bring together those who are dealing with the same challenges to learn from each other and improve their skills.

You can join JuRSE easily by joining the mailing list and you can take advantage of the community initiatives like Open Hours where you can chat to the JuRSE team about any aspect of your software, or the JuRSE Travel Grants that help you attend an RSE Conference, or use any of our resources on our website like our ‘Interactive Software Guideline Tool'.

Name: Eric von Lieres
Job title: Head of Modeling and Simulation
Location: Biotechnology, IBG-1/FZ Jülich/Modeling and Simulation

What role does software play in your work?
The development and application of research software is at the heart of my daily work. In our open-source project CADET (https://cadet.github.io), we integrate an expanding family of biotechnological process models with state-of-the-art numerical solution algorithms. I greatly enjoy working with a highly motivated team of talented people.

Over the last 20 years, my role has evolved from lonely coding to product ownership and project management. Research software engineering has become essential for handling the growing complexity of the software and the increasing number of contributors, while ensuring robustness and reproducibility.

In what ways does the FZJ support your work on software?
A clear commitment to open source software. Infrastructure such as JuGit and Jülich Data. Dedicated support and trainings offered by the supercomputing center and central library. Legal advice and contracting.

How can software work be recognised and rewarded better?
Recognize software contributions and sustainable code to be equally important as journal publications in measuring scientific success.

What are your future wishes for your code? Stable funding for development, maintenance and support. Long-term growth and success of my professional legacy.

Name: Lupe (Maria Guadalupe Barrios Sazo)
Job title:  Research Software Engineer
Location: the RSE group in JSC (IAS institute), in the Mathematics and Education division.   

What role does software play in your work?
In the past, the work I carried out was dependent on scientific software, mainly simulation codes. After joining FZJ, I have become more aware of the many possible and essential roles that software plays throughout the research cycle. Part of our goal is to support good research software practices for sound and reproducible research.  

I have always like mathematics, science and coding. While my background is in Physics, what I have enjoyed more through my career was the computational aspect of it. Something that has been interesting for me is to constantly learn and apply techniques that enhance the sustainability and efficiency of codes, and productivity of code development. 

How can software work be recognised and rewarded better?
One of the ways to recognize research software work better would be to support RSE as a career path, e.g. by offering more permanent contracts for RSEs.

How are you involved in JuRSE?
Some of the activities I am involved in are the Open Hours which are a way to support and engage RSEs with different thoughts and questions. I also take part on highlighting a code developed at FZJ once a month, help with hackathons, and  currently developing a self-paced training for RSE good practices. In addition I interface with FZJ groups to assist with advancing their RSE/software goals.

Name: Deniz Kilic
Job Title: Employed in information technology (simpler would probably be software developer), 1/3 position alongside the Master's degree
Institut: IAS-7

What role does software play in your work? I am employed as a software developer. So software naturally plays the main role in my work. I support the scientists in our institute by developing software, especially PeTrack (jugit, Helmholtz RSD), a software that would be difficult for them to develop on their own with about 50k lines of code (outside the domain of most scientists at our institute).

What interests/interested you in pursuing Research Software Engineering? In my experience, the application or use case in the research software is really interesting. The same curiosity that drives a scientist in research drives the RSE in the development of software. I also enjoy programming and designing software myself. This combination makes for a fulfilling job.

In what ways does the FZJ support your work on software? On the one hand, the research center provides support by providing infrastructure, such as our GitLab instances. But also through training and networking. For example, I have already been able to take advantage of help in the JuRSE Open Hour. However, the most important thing for me as a MATSE is probably the training. Lectures and exercises in a well-coordinated timetable, which also enables work at the institute, and close supervision in the study area by the JSC have made it possible for me to learn software development.

How can software work be recognised and rewarded better? If software is necessary for research, it should be cited. Although there are guidelines for this (e.g. from the Software Sustainability Institute), citing software versions instead of just an accompanying paper is not yet widespread enough. This means that only those who were involved in the software at the time the paper was published are considered. In addition, the career path as an RSE is currently still unclear. Asking scientists to do the code “on the side” does not do justice to the complexity of the task. There must be the opportunity to concentrate on software development.

What are your future wishes for your code? Consistency. The code I've been working on has been around since my primary school days. That is not a given. Software needs to be maintained over time. But no structure for long-term maintenance exists, even though the software has proven its value. In an unclear relay race, you have to hope that someone new comes along to whom you can pass the torch before you either change roles and therefore develop less or simply graduate and leave FZJ

Name: Michael Hanke
Job title: Group Leader, data management
Location: INM-7

What role does software play in your work? Software development and maintenance is one of the primary tasks of my group. Beyond that and also long before, I have been a free software proponent and Debian developer. It is a passion for me.

What interests/interested you in pursuing Research Software Engineering? For a long time, software has been a tool to pursue research for me. An essential tool, but just a tool. That introduced me to the fast cycle of innovation and death that is a key aspect of research software engineering. One rarely get's the chance to do-it-once-more-but-this-time-right. Maintaining roughly 100 neuroscience packages for the Debian project, about 10 years ago, gave mean idea of the factors that make or break a lot of research software and individual excellence is hardly ever sufficient. Today, my focus in RSE is getting software to a state that makes it more manageable to maintain.

In what ways does the FZJ support your work on software? The INM-7 provides an amazing environment to conduct RSE that is not contaminated by a premature aim for commercialization. The standing and setup of the FZJ and the Helmholtz society at provide an opportunity for a longevity of RSE products that is simply absent from most parts of the German academic system. I also particularly enjoy working with non-academic staff at FZJ, many of whom have positions that cannot be found in any significant numbers at universities.

How can software work be recognised and rewarded better? I think one of the best ways to reward people (also in RSE) is to provide them with attractive positions that enable them to do great work. Having a great tool developer have to impersonate a (bench) scientist simply takes up resources that they could have spent on delivering software solutions that can catalyse the work of the people around them.

What are your future wishes for your code? Less technical debt