RSE.swiss - The Swiss RSE community – Events

Annual Swiss RSE day 2026

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Applying for RSE jobs: Panel discussion

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Research Software Engineers (RSEs) work in a variety of software development-related roles in academia, and this job profile can provide you with a career option between an academic career and leaving academia to work in industry.

Join us for an exciting panel discussion about RSE jobs. The panel participants are involved in hiring RSEs and we want to give them an opportunity to introduce their respective units and share their experiences in hiring RSEs.

We hope that the attendees get an insight into the variety of job profiles and opportunities, as well as required skills and best practices for applying for an RSE job.

Registration is required for this event, and the link to register can be found below.

When and Where

The event will take place on 15 October 2024, 16-17:30 in HPM H 33 on ETH Hönggerberg campus:

Click thumbnail to enlarge.

Participants

We are happy to announce the following panel participants:

Simon Ebner (PSI, Paul Scherrer Institute)
Linus Gasser (C4DT, Center For Digital Trust, EPFL)
David Meyer (NEXUS Personalized Health Technologies, ETH Zurich)
Dr. Andrei Plamada (Science IT, UZH)
Dr. Christina Schnadt Poberaj (C2SM, Center for Climate Systems)
Dr. Peter W.J. Staar (IBM Research Zurich)
Dr. Thomas Wüst (Scientific IT Services, ETH Zurich)

Agenda

The (preliminary) schedule for the event is:

16:00 - 16:10 Introduction presentation
16:10 - 16:30 Individual introductions by panel participants
16:30 - 17:30 Panel discussion
17:30 - open end Networking at Alumni Lounge

Registration

Please use this form to register for the event.

Beyond Agile: People-Centered Development, User-Centered Results

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Come learn about an engineering development methodology other than “agile”, and how we use it to build Renku, a research collaboration platform.

In the last year and a half, we have transformed the Renku platform, building a totally new and more user-centric version of the platform from the ground up. But behind the scenes, our team itself has undergone a parallel transformation in how we build together. In this talk, I’ll share the key principles of the development methodology we have adopted to keep the user experience at the center of everything we build (Shape Up).

I’ll discuss how we translate high level strategy into day-to-day engineering, how we center our technical design process on the user experience, and how we integrate user research into our process.

This will be an open session with lots of time for questions and discussion! My hope is that you’ll leave with practical strategies to make your own development process both fulfilling for the people who build and delightful for the people who use what you create.

Best,
Laura

Book presentation - Software Engineering Made Easy - By Marco Gähler

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This event will take place at Impacthub, Bogen D, Viaduktstrasse 95 in Zurich on 27 August and starts at 18:00, with a 30 minute presentation from 18:30 to 19:00 and also offers drinks and pizza.

Marco Gähler would like to invite anyone interested in (research) software engineering to a presentation about his recently released book, Software Engineering Made Easy.

Software Engineering Made Easy is a book dedicated to readers who learned the fundamentals of programming, but lack the knowledge how to write industry grade code. In Software Engineering Made Easy, there are many simple ways explained, how to write better code. And I will explain some of them at the book presentation.

While the book is dedicated to programmers, the book presentation will be held at a level that also ordinary person can understand the relevant ideas behind good software engineering.

Career talks and discussions focused on Research Software Engineers and Data Stewards

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The RSE and DS communities will be hosting a joint networking event on 17 June, 2-5 pm at Eawag Dübendorf FC-C20 with career talks and discussions focused on Research Software Engineers and Data Stewards.

Target audience: Students, postdocs, and scientists with an interest in research software engineering, data science, or in using and managing research data.

Hear from Lars Schöbitz, Liliana Vargas Meleza, Vinzent Emonet, and Stefanie Eyring as they share their career journeys, then join group discussions defining these ever-evolving roles and connect over a relaxed networking apéro.

Please register here

Cheers,

Stuart Dennis, Fabian Felder, and Moushumi Ulrich-Nath

Career-focused DevExchange in WSL

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Inspired by a similar event at EAWAG, we are organising an internal Career-focused DevExchange event at WSL. Basically, to have 3-4 research software engineers among ourselves highlighting their career paths so far and their expectations and experiences with software engineering at WSL. We want to keep it highly informal (e.g. unlike other DevExchanges we don’t want to record it) and start some (very informal) discussions about your wishes, expectations and the possibilities that you might see for a career in software engineering at WSL.

Agenda:

Welcome and Agenda: Ionut & Ranita (max. 5 minutes)
Presentations (7 minutes presentation + 3 minutes Q&A each one)
- Enikö Fey
- Ranita Pal
- Dominik Haas
- Christoph Tellenbach
Discussions (15 minutes)

The event will be hybrid, so participation via Teams possible. Nevertheless, we encourage an active on-side participation in Flurysaal, WSL.

Careers in Data Stewardship

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

What do MeteoSwiss, the Federal Office for Agriculture, and the NEXUS Personalized Health Technologies platform have in common? Data Stewardship!

Are you an early-career researcher (MSc, PhD, post-doc) thinking about your next career step?

Come explore a fast-evolving career at the intersection of research, data, and policy. Meet fellow data stewards and learn about their career journeys:

Joël Fisler – Open Data Steward, MeteoSwiss
Lea Stauber – Data Scientist and Data Steward, Federal Office for Agriculture (BLW)
Natalia Chicherova – Senior Data Steward, NEXUS Personalized Health Technologies, Zurich

Organised by the Lib4RI on behalf of the ETH Domain Data Stewardship Network

Empa Scientific IT Seminar Series: Research Software Engineering seen from Industry

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce the following event from the RSE community at Empa on 19 February 15-16.

Marco Gähler: “Research Software Engineering seen from Industry”

The room is already full, but the organisers are offering a zoom link for remote attendance.

Abstract

At university, we learn how to write functions and classes, and then we are expected to write large-scale software. This just does not work. The code I wrote at the end of my studies was terrible. I did not even know that my code was bad; I just had this feeling that things were incredibly difficult. Most PhD students that I know face the same issue, and it’s not their fault. The problem is that we were never taught what software engineering is all about. In most research groups, there is a serious lack of knowledge regarding software engineering, which costs a lot of time and money.

I’m currently writing a book dedicated to myself back then, explaining everything I learned during the last few years in industry. I also help some PhD students at ETH improve their code. The progress some of them made in a few months is amazing, as the basic laws behind proper software engineering are very easy to learn. You just need someone to teach them to you.

Now, I would love to discuss with the research groups at Empa about their state of software engineering and how it could be improved.

EnhanceR seminar: Building Resilient (IT) Systems - mindset, design principals, tools

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce a presentation by Steven Armstrong, from ETH Zurich’s Scientific IT Services:

Building Resilient IT Systems. Mindset, design principles, tools, examples from the daily work operating the Euler HPC platform. on Wednesday, 27 August, from 10:00 to 11:00 on Zoom.

EnhanceR Seminar: Model Context Protocol (MCP) for Scientific Software and Research Workflows

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce the following presentation in the EnhanceR seminar series: Simon Dürr will be presenting on 24 September from 10–11 am at https://ethz.zoom.us/j/64873787594.

As with all events in the EnhanceR seminar series, this event is open to everyone.

Model Context Protocol (MCP) for Scientific Software and Research Workflows

As scientific software grows in complexity, so does the challenge of making its documentation, functionality, and usage accessible and efficient for researchers.

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) offers a novel approach to structuring and serving contextual information to AI models, enabling more intelligent and targeted interactions between software and users.

In this seminar I will provide a brief introduction to MCP, explain its core principles and the possible dangers when using MCP. A case study for a large scientific software with multiple different interfaces (XML, python) will show how MCP can be useful to facilitate onboarding of new users and speed up the work of experienced users.

Finally, the talk will show how to quickly build MCP servers that can directly be used in MCP enabled clients such as VSCode, Cursor or Claude Desktop.

EnhanceR seminar: Two presentations by RSE ambassadors

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We would like to invite you to the next one of the EnhanceR Seminar Series. This time we have two short talks from two of the current RSE Ambassadors:

James Runnalls, EAWAG, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology: The Last Mile of Open Science: UI/UX for Research Software Engineers
Ilya Misyura, FHNW, Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz: Digital Trust in Graph-RAG: From Authentication to Authority

Please feel free to forward this invitation to others who might be interested in the topic.

EnhanceR Symposium 2025

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

📢 On behalf of the EnhanceR and Research Software Engineering (hashtag#RSE) communities in 🇨🇭Switzerland, we would like to invite you to the upcoming EnhanceR Symposium.

🌐 The symposium will take place on 4 September 2025 at HEG-FR in Fribourg, Switzerland, and will focus on Swiss hashtag#RSE in Action. For more information and registration, please visit https://symposium.enhancer.ch/.

📝 During the registration process you will also have the opportunity to submit a contribution for a show-and-tell session or a workshop.

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Imanol Schlag, research scientist at the ETH AI Center and co-lead of the LLM effort of the Swiss AI Initiative and Dr. Sylvain Corlay, founder and CEO of QuantStack, a company specialising in open-source software for scientific computing will be our keynote speakers.

We would be delighted to welcome 🙋 you to the symposium and kindly ask you to 📨 forward the invitation internally to interested colleagues or to other interested parties.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at: symposium01@adminenhancermeta.googleorgchcom .

With best regards,

Your EnhanceR symposium organisation team

Environmentally sustainable design of digital services

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Charlotte Weil from ENAC-IT4R is organising a course on Monday the 13th of October on “Environmentally sustainable design of digital services”. You are invited to join the wrap-up of this course at noon in room GC C2 413 or on zoom.

Program

Debrief and presentation of the key points from the “Environmentally sustainable design of digital services” workshop. You’ll learn about the basic methodology for eco-designing digital services, delivered by the Resilio Academy instructors.

Please sign-up on our CryptPad Sign-up Form until the 9th of October.

EVERSE Project: Providing Tools and Resources for Research Software Quality

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We are pleased to invite you to a presentation by Kenneth Rioja who works as a developer for training infrastructure at CERN and is involved in Work Package 5 (Capacity Building and Recognition) of the EVERSE project.

Abstract

EVERSE https://everse.software is a community-led, EU-funded project bringing together 18 European institutions to establish a framework for research software quality and code excellence.

Collaboratively designed by research communities, EVERSE aims to drive a cultural shift where research software is recognised as a first-class citizen of the scientific process and its contributors are duly credited.

We will present the tools and resources EVERSE has developed over the last two years – ranging from practical guides and command line tools to full platforms – tailored for researchers, RSEs, and those involved in research infrastructure or policy.

We warmly welcome constructive feedback and early adopters.

First on-site event

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

With around 60 participants, the first on-site event of the RSE community @ ETH Zurich took place on Thursday, 1st of February, from 15:00 to 17:30 at ETH Zurich’s central campus in HG D3.2.

The schedule was as follows:

15:00 - 15:45 : Lightning talks
15:45 - 16:00 : break
16:00 - 16:30 : Presentation by Mr. Peter Schmidt, Trustee of the RSE society UK
16:30 - 17:30 : Breakout sessions/discussions

We are going to summarise the results from the discussion rounds soon.

Here are a few pictures from the event:

First on-site RSE event at PSI

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Dear all,

after the successful kick-off Meeting with more than 100 attendees we plan the next step in building a Research Software Engineer (RSE) community at PSI.

We are glad to announce an onsite event on Tuesday, 15 July 2025 from 15:00 to 16:30 followed by an apéro. If you are interested in this onsite event, please register via https://nuudel.digitalcourage.de/y2jqzj2DUglGzs8s till 1 July so that we know how many participants we can expect. The location will be announced beginning of July.

RSE communities are a means for exchange as well as a voice for emphasising the importance of software developers in modern research and for lobbying for suitable career paths for people working or considering working in such roles in academia. For more information please visit: https://rse.swiss.

This might be of particular interest to you if: You work at PSI, and a significant part of your daily job is programming or software engineering. You work as a scientific software developer, data scientist, computing specialist or in another role focusing on programming for research. You are a PhD student or a postdoc who could envision becoming a software developer in an academic environment.

Elsa Germann, Achim Gsell, Michael Weinold

First on-site RSE meeting University Bern

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Dear RSE community,

Good news. We are happy to announce the first in person RSE meeting on 5 June 2025 at 15:30 - 17:00 at the University of Bern in H4 115 (main building at Hochschulstrasse 4).

There will be two presentations:

BORIS Portal - Present your Research by Sumanghalyah Suntharam.

BORIS Portal links publications, research data, projects and researchers at the University of Bern together in an integrated system. As a research information system and institutional repository, it increases the visibility and transparency of scientific work.
REDCap - Advantages and Limits by Muriel Helmers and Flurina Jenal.

Are you planning to collect structured data at multiple locations? To conduct an online survey for your research project? Do you need a secure database or data entry in multiple languages? REDCap might be the right tool to check before writing your own programming code. We will give you an introduction and live session to REDCap, inform what services you can get for free at Uni Bern and what documentation is available to you.

After the event there will be an apero, where the participants can enjoy having a conversation in an informal atmosphere with a snack and a drink.

Please register at the registration page and import the invitation (ICS file in the attachment) into your calendar.

Looking forward to see you there.

Viktor

First On-Site RSE@UZH Event

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This event is only open to members of the University of Zurich (UZH), so the UZH login is required.

If you’d like to join, please register by Thursday, 13 November 2025, via the following link: https://forms.office.com/e/355KvvJiti.

We look forward to meeting you in person!

Git course for beginners and advanced learners

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Dear all,

we are excited to announce a Git course for beginners and advanced learners.

The course consists of 3 two-hour sessions plus a short introduction for complete newbies:

28 April, 11-12 am: Git setup (for newbies), Teams link
12 May, 10 am - 12 am: Git basics (for beginners); (coffee at 9:45 am), Teams link
26 May, 10 am - 12 am: Git advanced topics; (coffee at 9:45 am), Teams link
9 June, 10 am - 12 am: Git CI/CD; (coffee at 9:45 am), Teams link

Location: OFLG/402

Course Format: Hybrid (for people how would like to attend, but are not at PSI). The link will be posted shortly.

For more information see: https://rse.psi.ch/events/2026-04-28/Git-course/

Best regards

Achim

Help Shape the Future of RDM Training – Apply Now for the ETH Domain MOOCathon

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Data Management Campus team is organising a MOOCathon, an event in which researchers are invited to help co-create eLearning modules on Research Data Management, to be then published and shared across the ETH Domain!

What? 2-day in-person MOOCathon at ETH Zurich – developing modules on topics related to data management
When? 10 and 11 September, 2025
Why? Win prizes, enjoy meals while collaborating with other researchers, get your hotel stay covered if coming from outside of Zurich, and most importantly, make an impact in open science!

🔗 Apply now (limited spots!) → Registration Form

📅 Application deadline: 17 July 2025

For more information, see the document.

Sincerely,

The Data Management Campus Team

Inaugural RSE event at University of Bern

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This is the inaugural event of the community in Bern. The purpose of this event is to bring together people with the shared interest in Research Software Engineering (RSE), familiarise them with the RSE community movement worldwide and in Switzerland in particular, explain its objectives and discuss the prospective paths of the community’s growth in Bern, ways to meet, contribute and share ideas. The speakers are Uwe Schmitt (ETH), Tarun Chadha (ETH) and Viktor Kovtun (UniBern, DSL).

The event is scheduled online in Zoom on 12.05.2025 at 14:00 - 15:00. You can use this ICS file to add it to your calendar.

Lightning Talks @ EPFL

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We’re happy to have another round of lightning talks at EPFL. As last time, we’ll have three presentations, followed by discussion around the three topics. We’ll finish with pizza, so be sure to sign up!

Program

The event takes place in room BC410 or on zoom. The zoom will only contain the presentations, not the discussions, except if there are enough people connected.

Thursday, 23rd of October, in BC410:

Carine Dengler, “Towards (more) digital independency as a research engineer”
Reto Trappitsch, “Rusty way to store samples at liquid nitrogen temperatures”
Anonymous, “MS IMAP Woes - how to make your email client work (anyway)”

Please sign up for the event.

Lightning Talks @ EPFL

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We’re happy to have another round of lightning talks at EPFL. As last time, we’ll have three presentations, each time 10-15’ presentation, and 5-10’ discussion. We’ll finish with pizza, so be sure to sign up!

Program

The event takes place in room BC329 or on zoom. The zoom will only contain the presentations, not the pizzas :)

Thursday, 26th of February 2026, 11am, in BC329:

Linus Gasser - Paper Presentation: Bruce Schneier’s The Promptware Kill Chain
Diego Antolinos - A data paper without actual data?
Kyle Douglass - How I revived an old microscope with Open Source

Please sign up for the event!

On-site Meeting April 2024

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The next Meetup will take place on 24th April 16-18 at CAB G 61 on the Zurich Zentrum campus.

We will also try to stream the presentations via Zoom at https://ethz.zoom.us/j/61286043246.

Please fill out the form at https://u.ethz.ch/6931D if you plan to attend in person. If you are not sure if you have already registered: the service sends out confirmation emails with the (misspelled) title “Registraion RSE Community Event April 2024” with uwe.schmitt@id.ethz.ch as the sender.

If you are interested in helping to move the RSE community forward, don’t forget to sign up for some of the working groups. Details and the link to register can be found at https://rse.swiss/blog/2024_03_26_call_working_groups/.

The planned schedule for the event is

16:00 - 16:15 Updates from the organisers
16:15 - 16:45 Lightning talks, including
- Julien Dederke from the ETH Library on Open Research Data and the Datastewards network at ETH
- Andrei Plamada from S3IT (UZH) on “Building interactive content with inseri core for WordPress” (abstract below).
- Marco Gähler about his Project https://github.com/gaehlerm/SoftwareEngineering
- Luisa Barbanti about R-Ladies Zurich
16:45 - 17:15 Adéla Hlobilová (D-BAUG) will present UQLab and UQ[pyLab] (abstract below).
17:15 - 18:00 Breakout discussions / networking

Abstract “Building Interactive Content with inseri core for WordPress”

Inseri core is a new tool developed as part of the swissuniversities project inseri.swiss that aims to allow researchers to create and publish interactive and executable online content without requiring web development skills. inseri core is a WordPress plugin under active development that introduces scientific and interactive components (e.g., Data Table, Plotly Chart, Python Code, JavaScript Code, Zenodo Repository) to facilitate open science.

Abstract “Presentation UQLab and UQ[pyLab]”:

The Chair of Risk, Safety and Uncertainty Quantification at ETH Zurich develops two prominent software platforms for uncertainty quantification: UQLab in Matlab since 2013, and its Python counterpart, UQ[py]Lab since 2021. These platforms offer robust tools for analysing and managing uncertainties in various engineering and scientific applications. UQLab provides a comprehensive suite of algorithms for surrogate modelling, uncertainty propagation, sensitivity analysis, reliability assessment, Bayesian model calibration and more; its Python equivalent, UQ[py]lab, is based on an API called UQCloud, and Python bindings, opening the platform to a broader user base. To date UQLab has more than 7,000 cumulated users worldwide from more than 95 countries.

On-site Meeting June 2024

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The next Meetup will take place on 4th June 16-19 at HG D1.1 in the ETH main building. The meetup is parallel to the PASC24 conference and RSEs from other countries will attend also. We will also stream the presentations via Zoom at https://ethz.zoom.us/j/66358365076.

The schedule for the event is

16:00 - 16:30 Get together
16:30 - 16:45 Introduction
16:45 - 18:00 Presentations:
- Kirsty Pringle (5 minute lightning talk): “Green RSEs: Working to reduce the environmental impact of research software”
- Moritz Mähr (5 minute lightning talk): “Fast prototyping: CollectionBuilder’s Minimal Computing Approach to Open-Source Collections and Exhibits”
- Daniel S. Katz (15 minutes + 5 minutes Q&A): “The history of US-RSE”
- short break
- Sebastian Keller (20 minutes + 5 minutes Q&A): “Supporting computational researchers with engineering know-how: the role of the PASC core team at CSCS”
- Roman Wixinger, Linus Gasser (10 minutes + 5 minutes Q&A): “Put some devbox in your repo!”
18:00 - 19:00 Breakout group discussions about “automated testing”
- 30 minutes of discussions in small groups
- 30 minutes for presenting the findings
19:00 - : Socialising and networking at bQm.

Please register using this link if you plan to join.

Online information event on the "Research Software Engineering (RSE) Movement" at PSI

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The AWI department and especially the HPCE team is glad to announce an online information event on the “Research Software Engineering (RSE) Movement” on Wednesday 7th of May from 15:00 to 16:00 on Teams Link

With this event, we aim to bring the ideas of the RSE movement to closer awareness at the Paul Scherrer Institute and connect people with similar interests.

If you are interested in participating in this online event or want to stay up to date on this topic, please write to achim.gsell@psi.ch to subscribe to our mailing list rse@lists.psi.ch.

Elsa Germann and Achim Gsell

Open-source software services meet-up: special edition 'Fragilités et souveraineté numérique'

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The Center for Digital Trust (C4DT) is organising a special edition of our bi-annual open-source software services meet-up with an external guest speaker, David Monniaux from Université Grenoble Alpes.

The event will take place the 4th March from 10:30-12:00 in BC 410 or remotely via Zoom.

Program

David’s presentation “Fragilités numériques” on the fragility of our digital ecosystem will be followed up with a panel discussion on how this relates to digital sovereignty, in our society at large and in academia and at EPFL in particular.

In addition to David, we’re happy to have from EPFL

Khadidja Malleck, RCP’s operational director,
Prof. Mathias Payer, leader of the HexHive lab, and
Rafael Corvalán, director of the DSI

Join us for the panel discussion, which will be moderated by Imad Aad from the C4DT.

The presentation will be in French with English slides, and the panel discussion will be in French.

Opendata.ch and the upcoming Hackathon

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce the following presentation by Florin Hasler (opendata.ch) and Sebastian Sigloch (switch.ch) on Zoom on 18 March 15:00-16:00:

Abstract

Open data and data reuse enhance research by enabling collaboration, transparency, efficiency, and innovation.

In 2027 a new law comes into effect mandating the federal government to publish its data openly by default – a paradigm shift and milestone for the open data community in Switzerland.

However, research institutions are exempt from this obligation. In this session, we ask how the Open (Government) Data and the research community can benefit from each other and how hackathons foster collaboration and innovation.

Furthermore, we will present our initial concept of an FAIR/Open Research Data Hackathon and are looking forward to your feedback and ideas.

openwashdata hackathon

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We are excited to invite you to our upcoming openwashdata hackathon, a fully online event dedicated to creating compelling visualisations using open data on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) with prizes worth a total of 1500 CHF!

📆 Event Details

Since its inception two years ago, openwashdata and its community have published nearly 30 WASH-related datasets. Now, it’s time to take stock, reflect on this achievement, and celebrate this milestone by bringing the data to life through visualisation.

Don’t miss this opportunity to showcase your skills and contribute to the openwashdata community. We look forward to seeing your ideas and visualisations!

Date: Friday, November 29, 10:00 - 16:00 PM (CET)
**Platform: ** Online (Zoom)
Registration: https://forms.office.com/e/L60DRYNJ2E (registration due date: November 26, 2024)

🏁 Goal

Choose one or more datasets from the openwashdata catalogue: https://openwashdata.org/pages/gallery/data/.
Use your favourite visualisation tool.
Create a compelling graphic that tells a story.

Process

Sign-up using this registration form: https://forms.office.com/e/L60DRYNJ2E

You will hear back from us with a registration form for a Zoom meeting by November 27, 2025. The event on November 29 will have the following structure:

Kickoff Session: We’ll start with a virtual kickoff, explaining the rules and providing an overview of the different datasets.
Support: Access mentors and a help desk (Zoom Chat) throughout the event to assist with any questions or technical issues.
Prizes: The top three submissions will receive cash prizes:

First place: 750 CHF
Second place: 500 CHF
Third place: 250 CHF

Submission: Submit your project through the following form by 16:00 CET: https://forms.gle/RUs3oLWgcJ4bTaaU8

Tools and Technologies

As a participant, you can use any tool or programming language you prefer. Whether you’re comfortable with Python, R, MS Excel, PowerBI, Tableau, or any other technology, bring your expertise.

Judging and Awards:

Our judges will evaluate the submissions based on creativity, technical difficulty, and presentation. Winners will be announced during our virtual award ceremony by 16:00 CET.

Presentation about the "Basics of Computing Environments for Scientists" course from ISG DPHYS

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Dear Members of the RSE Community,

We are happy to invite you to the first event after the summer break.

In the next Community Call on 11 September, 10-11 am on zoom,

Claude Becker from the IT Services Group of the Physics Department at ETH Zurich will present their course “Basics of Computing Environments for Scientists”. He will give an insight into the background and organisational aspects of the course, followed by a short tour through the contents.

The preliminary schedule of the event is:

10:00 - 10:10 Introduction and updates by the organisers
10:10 - 10:50 Presentation by Claude Becker:
- 10-15 Minutes: Background of compenv course
- 25-30 Minutes: Selected content from the compenv course
10:50 - 11:00 Q&A and discussions

Please use the ics file to add this event to your calendar.

Presentation: Coding: Collaboration, Quality, Architecture, and Performance

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Join us for an online presentation by Chad Baker on 6th of May, 10-11am!

Chad Baker accidentally stumbled into simulation software development when he developed Python models to help explain experimental results of his automotive catalyst testing apparatus while doing research for his MS in mechanical engineering at University of Texas at Austin.

He then went on to refine this skills with deeper efforts during his PhD research, went on to work for Ford Motor Company for 6 years developing thermal systems simulations and integrating them into full vehicle simulations, and then went to work for the National Renewable Energy Lab (now known as National Lab of the Rockies) in Golden, CO for 6 years.

Since joining the Geothermal Energy and Geofluids (GEG) group at ETH in September 2025, Chad has shifted to working on geothermal energy simulation.

In this talk, Chad will share lessons he’s learned from years of practical efforts in collaborative coding for research software engineering, focusing on collaborative coding, code quality, systems modeling architecture, serialization/deserialization, assessing performance, and using Rust under the hood to accelerate Python code.

Presentation: From scientific software to public tools

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This is an on-site event at the Paul Scherrer Institute.

Romain Sacchi is a senior scientist in the Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis.

His “carculator” tool allows users to calculate and compare the lifetime carbon emissions for various cars—electric, hybrid, gasoline, and more. Originally created to support scientific publications, a recent collaboration with Touring Club Switzerland has now made the tool available to a wider audience: anyone in Switzerland looking for a new car.

Romain will share insights on how to transition scientific software into a successful public-facing tool.

Presentation: Serverless and decentralized

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This is an on-site event at the Paul Scherrer Institute.

Michael Weinold is a PhD student in the Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis. Many of the software tools he has built can be used by students and researchers – but hosting them on a managed server is also very costly. This is why he has ported the tools to run in a browser sandbox using the WebAssembly standard. No running cost – and complex Python-based calculations directly in the browser. This can power user-friendly dashboard and web applications.

Michael will share insights into how to set up tools in this new way.

Presentations about "devbox" and "pytest-regtest"

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce a zoom presentations by Linus Gasser (C4DT Center For Digital Trust, EPFL), Roman Wixinger (Ergon) and Uwe Schmitt (Scientific IT Services of ETH) on 5 November, 11-12 (CET time) on Zoom (https://ethz.zoom.us/j/61451113551):

Linus and Roman will present an updated version of their RSECon24 presentation “Re-runnable code is all you need”, introducing devbox, a tool for creating “isolated, reproducible development environments that run anywhere”.
Uwe will present the pytest-regtest plugin for the Python testing framework pytest, which makes it easy to implement tests for complex results, such as nested data structures, NumPy arrays and pandas data frames.

Please note: This call will be recorded.

Please use the ics file to add this event to your calendar.

Abstracts:

Re-runnable code is all you need.

Reproducibility is fundamental to scientific integrity but is increasingly compromised by the common practices of publishing papers without code, or sharing code that cannot be executed easily on another computer due to unmanaged dependencies and computing environments.

This talk introduces the landscape of tools that enable researchers to overcome these barriers, with a focus on Devbox, a tool designed to encapsulate computing environments. With Devbox it is easy to ensure that scientific code is not just runnable but also replicable across various systems.

By highlighting specific case studies, this presentation demonstrates how Devbox and similar technologies can transform research workflows, dramatically saving time with automation, making it easier to collaborate, and enhancing the credibility of results. Attendees will gain actionable strategies to implement a culture of reproducibility, making their research transparent and reproducible with minimal effort.

The `pytest-regtest` plugin for the Python `pytest` testing framework

Unlike functional testing, regression testing does not test whether software produces the correct results, but whether it behaves as it did before changes were introduced.

pytest-regtest is a plugin for the popular pytest testing framework for Python. The plugin provides snapshot testing, a method of implementing regression testing by recording results within a test function and comparing it with previously recorded reference data.

Some common use cases for snapshot testing are:

Providing a safety net when working with code with little or no test setup.
Testing complex data, such as nested data structures.
Testing NumPy arrays or pandas data frames

The presentation will discuss these use cases and show how pytest-regtest can be used in such situations.

Renku 2.0 hands-on introduction

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce the following presentation and hands-on workshop by Laura Kinkead and Rok Roskar from the SDSC.

Abstract

Renku 2.0 for Collaborative Research

Renku has evolved considerably over the past several years; from our strong initial focus on computational reproducibility to our current goals of fostering collaboration, transparency, and re-usability in all types of data-centric research. In Renku, researchers can connect data, code, and containerised computational environments for everything from day-to-day work to demonstration and publication. On Renku, your project does not exist in isolation: project assets can be shared and reused with team members or even made public.

During this presentation, SDSC’s Laura Kinkead and Rok Roskar will introduce the new Renku 2.0 platform, which has just been opened for early access. Join this hands-on workshop to learn how you could use Renku in your work and improve collaboration among your team.

Research Software Engineers vs. Industry Software Engineers

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce the presentation on Teams by David Meyer from NEXUS Personalized Health Technologies titled “Research Software Engineers vs. Industry Software Engineers” on Wednesday, 21 August, from 15:30 to 16:30.

The ICS file also contains the Teams link.

Abstract

In today’s technology-driven world, software engineers play a pivotal role across disciplines - but the nature of their work can look very different depending on the context.

This talk highlights the key differences and shared challenges between Research Software Engineers (RSEs) and Industry Software Engineers (ISEs).

Format: 30 min Presentation followed by a discussion (where does the audience (dis)agree and what challenges are they facing every day).

RSE Career Talks

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Have you ever thought about working as an Research Software Engineer?

Join us for a our RSE Career Talks event on 4 December 2025 at ETH Hönggerberg in HIT E 51.

We invited five Research Software Engineers to share insights into their work and careers, and to talk about what has helped them progress:

Dr. Lorenz Blum (Novartis)
Dr. Aleksandar Bobić (NEXUS)
Saransh Chopra (EPFL)
Dr. Marianna Papadionysiou (Scientific IT Services of ETH)
James Runnalls (EAWAG)

Schedule

The preliminary schedule for the event is as follows:

16:00 - 16:45 Presentations
16:45 - 17:30 Panel Discussion
17:30 Apéro

Registration

This event is open to everyone and requires registration. Please register here.

Registration will close on 29 November!

RSE Community Building

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The EPFL RSE team (Son Pham-Ba, Emmanuel Lanti, Nicolas Richart, Linus Gasser) invites you to a “Community Building” event. Based on the Minimum Viable Community canvas, we will gather on the 10th of December 2025 to answer the 9 “most crucial” questions on Identity, Experience, and Structure. Please join us to share your ideas of what a successful RSE community looks like!

Wednesday, 10th December, 11am-noon, BC329, followed by Pizza!

If you cannot make it, don’t hesitate to share your ideas on the RSE-EPFL matrix channel.

Signup here for pizza before 23:39 on the 9th of December.

RSE Community meeting at WSL

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

A Research Software Engineer (RSE) is basically anyone who contributes a significant portion of their time to software/technical development for research. An RSE can be a scientist with a focus on programming as well as a software engineer with a connection to science. In the frame of the ETH Domain ORD Program M2: “Building a Research Software Engineering Community to Promote Open Science”, we are organising a first RSE community meeting at WSL, in order to introduce and clarify the concept of RSE at WSL, to connect to the wider RSE community, and to exchange ideas for the future.

Agenda:

13:30 – 13:35 Welcome to the first RSE@WSL meeting (I. Iosifescu, WSL)
13:35 – 14:15 RSE Introductory presentations
- “The RSE movement - An initiative to emphasise the importance of software in research and academia” (T. Chadha & U. Schmitt, ETH Zurich)
- “The Development of RSE and Science IT Team at Empa” (A. Bachofner, A. Yakutovich, Empa)
14:15 – 15:00 Q&A and plenary discussions (all participants)
15:00 – 15:30 RSE networking session (optional)

If the topic of Research Software Engineering resonates with you, we are looking forward to your participation on 03.02.2025 at WSL Birmensdorf; please follow the blue line to get to Englersaal from the WSL entrance.

For organisational reasons, please register until 29.01.2025 using this link: https://www.wsl.ch/de/ueber-die-wsl/veranstaltungen-und-kurse/registration-rse-community-meeting/

RSE Suisse Romand Meetup

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce the event RSE Suisse Romand Meetup at EPFL, CM 1 105 on Tuesday, 2 June, from 9:30am to 4pm. The goal is to gather the Swiss-Romand RSEs (Geneva, Vaud, Valais, Neuchâtel, Jura, parts of Bern and Fribourg) to exchange and prepare for the upcoming CH-wide RSE meetup on the 31st of August in Zurich! But mostly to get to know each other and share the good news of Research Software Engineering :)

If you plan to come, or if you want to propose a talk, please sign up here:

Signup for event and talk proposal

For talk propositions, please send them in before the 17th of May. We will publish the agenda in the week of the 18th of May. The tentative agenda is:

Location: EPFL CM 1 105 and CM 1 104:

9:00 - coffee
9:30 - morning session
12:00 - lunch
1:00 - afternoon session I
2:30 - coffee
3:00 - afternoon session II
4:00 - wrap-up

RSE@UZH Kickoff

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

We are excited to announce the RSE@UZH Kickoff event, taking place on September 25th at 14:00 as a 1-hour Zoom meeting.

This event aims to bring together people who share an interest in Research Software Engineering (RSE), introduce the newly established RSE@UZH community, and connect it to the broader Swiss RSE movement. Our special guests, Tarun Chadha and Uwe Schmitt from ETH Zurich, will give a talk titled “Swiss RSE Movement: Why Does It Matter?”, offering insights into the growing RSE community in Switzerland.

Join us to learn more about the new Research Software Engineering community at UZH, why it matters, and how you can get involved.

You can use this ICS file to add it to your calendar.

RSECon25 - The UK conference for Research Software Engineers

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The ninth annual conference for Research Software Engineering (RSECon25) will be hosted at the University of Warwick in Coventry, UK from 9 – 11 September 2025.

The organisers are expecting around 450 delegates from around the world – mainly Research Software Engineers, but also other people related to the wider field. They also plan an online stream of the conference, for those who cannot travel to Coventry in-person.

The conference also hosts some satellite events, and offers many opportunities for networking.

You can read the full announcement and all details at https://rsecon25.society-rse.org/.

Show your tools!

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The next on-site event will be called Show your tools! and will take place on 5 December from 15:30 to 17:00 in CHN G42 at the ETH Zentrum campus. A map showing the location of the building can be found here.

The concept is that volunteers will present their favourite tools in a short teaser talk. This will be followed by a discussion in breakout groups for a more in-depth introduction and help in setting up a tool.

The following volunteers will present:

Edoardo Baldi: “The Zed code editor with built-in AI”
Jaime Cardozo: “Cloud Native Buildpacks (https://buildpacks.io)”
Johanna Haffner: “pre-commit with ruff and pyright”
Leonardo Schwarz: “uv and nox”
Kalman Szenes: “The Lazygit interface for git”
Philipp Wissmann: “Modern C++ project setup: analysis, compilation & packaging”

The preliminary schedule of the event is:

15:15 - 15:30: Get together before the event
15:30 - 15:45: Teaser Talks
15:45 - 17:00: Breakout groups
17:00 - open end: Socialising at bQm bar.

Please register here to join the event.

Software development in academia – a personal perspective

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Speaker

Dr. Marnik Bercx (Center of Scientific Computing, Theory and Data; Laboratory for Materials Simulations; PSI).

Location and Time

Friday, 29 November, 11:00 to 12:00 at VE102, Empa, Dübendorf

Abstract

Software development in academia is often an underappreciated and undervalued aspect of scientific research.

Many researchers who contribute to software projects lack formal training in programming, having picked up coding skills through necessity rather than education. This results in software that may not meet high standards of quality, maintainability, or documentation. Despite its importance, funding agencies often fail to recognise that software development requires dedicated expertise, resources, and ongoing maintenance, leading to a reliance on well-meaning individuals who contribute code in their spare time.

Meanwhile, the academic rewards, such as citations and career advancement, typically accrue to those producing scientific papers, not the software that underpins them. Furthermore, many scientists prioritise research outcomes over software development, seeing the latter as secondary to their core scientific goals.

However, recent initiatives such as the Research Software Engineer (RSE) movement are helping address these issues by providing career paths for software-focused scientists. These efforts are crucial to sustaining the academic ecosystem, ensuring that software development receives the attention and support it needs to thrive, and that the infrastructure supporting modern research remains functional and reliable.

Technical documentation with mkdocs and WebAssembly

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This event is open to everyone!

We are pleased to announce the presentation Technical documentation with mkdocs and WebAssembly by Michael Weinold from PSI.

The presentation will take place on 23 October from 10 am to 11 am on Zoom.

Abstract

Is your brilliant scientific code held back by complex setups? What if your documentation was also your demo?

Discover how to transform your project with live, interactive code examples that anyone can run.

Michael Weinold of Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and ETH Zurich will demonstrate how scientific software can be taken to the next level with high-quality technical documentation and Python run directly in the browser. Tools used will be mkdocs and Pyodide.

Tuesdays Tech Talks - 3D Data at ENAC

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Tuesdays Tech Talks aims to foster interdisciplinary knowledge sharing within our ENAC community on data & coding topics, across academic domains and career levels. Focused on specific technical challenges or tools, each session gives the floor to researchers, data engineers or software developers to share experiences and discuss state-of-the-art solutions to common technical questions.

Lunch & Learn format fosters exchange and energetic discussions. Bring your own Lunch!

Organised by the ENAC-IT4R team.

Program

The event covers 3D data from multiple angles across four themes:

Introduction to 3D data - An overview of 3D data concepts, web tooling for 3D experiences, and different ways to represent 3D information.
Meshes and 2D graphs - Visualising multidimensional simulation data using 3D representations and 2D graphs, with a focus on urban thermal modelling.
Real-world 3D data: Lidar and point clouds - Demos and talks on the TimeMachine project, airborne laser scanning, point cloud creation and web visualisation, timber fabrication using point clouds, and interoperability in building software.
Gaussian Splatting on the web - An introduction to Gaussian Splatting, a WebGPU viewer for neural radiance fields, and converting video to floor plans.
Discussion

To register, please send an email to enacit4research@epfl.ch.

Tuesdays Tech Talks - AI Tools for Coding

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lunch & Learn format fosters exchange and energetic discussions. Bring your own Lunch!

Organised by the ENAC-IT4R team.

Program

LLM Fundamentals (prompting, RAG, IDE integration, GitHub Copilot)
Open alternatives (local inference, tooling)
Agentic programming in practice (presented by a software engineer from industry)
Risks and concerns
Questions and discussions

To register, please send an email to enacit4research@epfl.ch.

Tuesdays Tech Talks - Code that talks

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lunch & Learn format fosters exchange and energetic discussions. Bring your own Lunch!

Organised by the ENAC-IT4R team.

Topic

Code that talks: Literate programming, docstrings and live documentation

To register, please send an email to enacit4research@epfl.ch.

Tuesdays Tech Talks - Data contributions pipelines

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lunch & Learn format fosters exchange and energetic discussions. Bring your own Lunch!

Organised by the ENAC-IT4R team.

Topic

Data contributions pipelines in Open Databases

To register, please send an email to enacit4research@epfl.ch.

Tuesdays Tech Talks - Open-source tools for mobility

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Lunch & Learn format fosters exchange and energetic discussions. Bring your own Lunch!

Organised by the ENAC-IT4R team.

Topic

Open-source tools for mobility: Traffic simulation and routing adventures

To register, please send an email to enacit4research@epfl.ch.

RSE.swiss - The Swiss RSE community – Events

Annual Swiss RSE day 2026

Applying for RSE jobs: Panel discussion

When and Where

Participants

Agenda

Registration

Beyond Agile: People-Centered Development, User-Centered Results

Book presentation - Software Engineering Made Easy - By Marco Gähler

Career talks and discussions focused on Research Software Engineers and Data Stewards

Career-focused DevExchange in WSL

Careers in Data Stewardship

Empa Scientific IT Seminar Series: Research Software Engineering seen from Industry

Abstract

EnhanceR seminar: Building Resilient (IT) Systems - mindset, design principals, tools

EnhanceR Seminar: Model Context Protocol (MCP) for Scientific Software and Research Workflows

Model Context Protocol (MCP) for Scientific Software and Research Workflows

EnhanceR seminar: Two presentations by RSE ambassadors

EnhanceR Symposium 2025

Environmentally sustainable design of digital services

Program

Signup

EVERSE Project: Providing Tools and Resources for Research Software Quality

Abstract

First on-site event

First on-site RSE event at PSI

First on-site RSE meeting University Bern

First On-Site RSE@UZH Event

Git course for beginners and advanced learners

Help Shape the Future of RDM Training – Apply Now for the ETH Domain MOOCathon

Inaugural RSE event at University of Bern

Lightning Talks @ EPFL

Program

Lightning Talks @ EPFL

Program

On-site Meeting April 2024

Abstract “Building Interactive Content with inseri core for WordPress”

Abstract “Presentation UQLab and UQ[pyLab]”:

On-site Meeting June 2024

Online information event on the "Research Software Engineering (RSE) Movement" at PSI

Open-source software services meet-up: special edition 'Fragilités et souveraineté numérique'

Program

Opendata.ch and the upcoming Hackathon

Abstract

openwashdata hackathon

📆 Event Details

🏁 Goal

Process

Tools and Technologies

Judging and Awards:

Presentation about the "Basics of Computing Environments for Scientists" course from ISG DPHYS

Presentation: Coding: Collaboration, Quality, Architecture, and Performance

Presentation: From scientific software to public tools

Presentation: Serverless and decentralized

Presentations about "devbox" and "pytest-regtest"

Abstracts:

Re-runnable code is all you need.

The pytest-regtest plugin for the Python pytest testing framework

Renku 2.0 hands-on introduction

Abstract

Renku 2.0 for Collaborative Research

Research Software Engineers vs. Industry Software Engineers

Abstract

RSE Career Talks

Schedule

Registration

RSE Community Building

RSE Community meeting at WSL

Agenda:

RSE Suisse Romand Meetup

RSE@UZH Kickoff

RSECon25 - The UK conference for Research Software Engineers

Show your tools!

Software development in academia – a personal perspective

Speaker

Location and Time

Abstract

Technical documentation with mkdocs and WebAssembly

Abstract

Tuesdays Tech Talks - 3D Data at ENAC

The `pytest-regtest` plugin for the Python `pytest` testing framework