Research Software Engineering: Origin Stories

The pivotal role software now plays within most large research projects is beyond refute, yet the individuals writing the software are often overlooked. In March 2012, at Queen's College London, a small group met to discuss this lack of recognition and what could be done to rectify the situation. The historical outcome of that meeting was the birth of the Research Software Engineering (RSE) movement. In this talk, I will unpack the origin story of the RSE movement and its astounding growth over the past decade. Institutional and regional RSE groups across the UK provide valuable cross-discipline communities for like-minded developers, and many have become hubs for providing bespoke, industry-level software development to academics who previously would not have had access to such services. Host institutions benefit from the training given by members of RSE groups, teaching academics basic software and data manipulation skills and mentoring them in software best practices such as reproducibility, reusability and sustainability, helping improve productivity and the quality and reach of their research. Looking closer to home, I will also discuss how we can all benefit from investing in RSE-NI, Northern Ireland's fledgling regional RSE group.