Who are we?
We are a group of people dedicated to building a Swiss wide community for research software engineers (RSEs). Some of us are funded by the ETH Domain’s ORD programme as part of the RSE4ORD project, but we are also supported by EnhanceR and volunteers from all over Switzerland.
Our map of local Swiss RSE communities shows an overview of ongoing activities.
Are you an RSE?
The RSE title includes many different roles, so there is no unique definition of ‘what is an RSE’. You may consider yourself an RSE if you can answer ‘yes’ to at least one of the following questions:
- Do you like programming as much as science, and maybe a little bit more?
- Do you use programming expertise to advance research?
- Do you apply software engineering skills and practices to research to create more robust, manageable, and sustainable research software?
It is up to you to identify as an RSE!
Below are some examples of typical RSE personas:
- A student, postdoctoral researcher, research assistant or professor for whom programming is a significant part of their research.
- The go-to person in our group for assistance with programming-related issues.
- A professional software developer employed to develop software to assist or advance scientific progress.
- Members of RSE support groups. These are typically groups within research institutions that provide software engineering expertise to researchers.
RSEs also work in the private or public sectors outside of academia, for example in organisations that have research units or close collaborations with academic institutions.
The RSE spectrum
The term Research Software Engineer, or RSE, emerged a little over 10 widely adopted and there are a number of high-level definitions of what an RSE is. However, the roles of RSEs vary depending on the institutional context they work in. At one end of the spectrum, RSE roles may look similar to a traditional research role. At the other extreme, they resemble that of a software engineer in industry. Most RSE roles inhabit the space between these two extremes. Therefore, providing a straightforward, comprehensive definition of what an RSE does and what experience, skills and competencies are required to become one is challenging.
Why the title RSE?
The title “RSE” was invented with several objectives in mind:
To give people with overlapping profiles and interests a common identity and increase their visibility.
To provide a unique job title that is easier to search for and to advertise than all the little variations like “scientific programmer”, “research software specialist”, etc.
To highlight the importance of software (especially sustainable software development) and those who develop it in modern research.
To create communities of like-minded people who share common interests.
It started in the UK
Our initiative builds on 10 years of work by others.
The Software Sustainability Institute conducted a study in 2014 to access the importance of Software in UK Research.
The conclusion was that around 70% of researchers said they could not carry out their research without research software1. Another finding was that most researchers who develop research software have no formal training in software development. This blog post discusses the results of this study in more detail.
The first action taken to highlight the special role of the programmers who develop research software was to create a new and unique name: Research Software Engineers.
We recommend this article for a full overview.
Software that does not generate, process or analyse results - such as word processing software, or the use of a web search - does not count as ‘research software’ for the purposes of this survey.
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