A Research Software Engineering Workflow for Computational Science and Engineering

We present a Research Software Engineering (RSE) workflow for developing research software in Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) in university research groups. Their members have backgrounds from different scientific disciplines and often no education in RSE. Research software development lasts many years, contrary to team members leaving regularly.

Combining and re-using ideas and results from others is a fundamental principle of science. In CSE research software embodies research ideas. As CSE research advances, research software should grow sustainably over the years. To increase the sustainability of research software, our workflow simplifies the investigation and integration of research ideas, ensures reproducibility and new functionality does not impair existing one. These practices speed up research and increase the quality of scientific output. Our CSE-RSE workflow is simple, effective and largely ensures the FAIR principles.The workflow uses established practices and tools, pragmatically adapted for CSE research software: version-control, secondary-data standards, continuous integration and containerization.