Research Software Engineering Sheffield - what we do

We would like to collaborate with you to help improve your research software in a range of areas. Supporting the entire University, we have collaborators in every faculty and have supported researchers in a range of subject areas including engineering, mathematics, computer science, biology, linguistics, physics, chemistry and geography.

Research Software Engineering

We can help you take your computational workflow to the next level –making it more automated, robust, open, accessible, user friendly and reproducible.

Increasing research impact through software

We believe that it is possible to increase the impact of your research by leveraging the research software you developed to make it possible. We can help you make your software open, citable and discoverable.

Faster code

We can work with you to optimise your code using a range of hardware and software technologies. R, Python, OpenMP, CUDA, C++, C, Fortran, MATLAB, Mathematica, and more - we have proven experience in helping researchers get results more quickly. In some cases, we can provide significant speed-ups in just a few days.

GPU computing

We have specialists in GPU computing who can assist you with accelerating your computational problems using this relatively new technology. We can also help you learn more about deep learning, the powerful new machine learning technique that uses GPUs to solve complex data science problems.

As part of our GPU computing at University of Sheffield initiative, we have a number of RSE team members who are Deep Learning Institute accredited trainers who run courses which aim to teach how to use GPUs and help you gain access to hardware.

We also specialise in the use of agent based modeling on GPUs using FLAME or FLAME GPU to perform large scale simulations.

High Performance Computing (HPC)

We collaborate with a range of partners including IT Services, N8, Archer and Microsoft to provide you with HPC support on local, regional, national and cloud-based facilities.

Locally, we assist IT Services in supporting users on the University’s HPC clusters, Stanage and Bessemer. We are major contributors to their documentation system and can help you with software installation, training and advice on how to make maximum use out of these HPC resources that are free to all members of The University of Sheffield.

We work with the UK National Supercomputing service, ARCHER2 as HPC Champions. Our role is to advise users on the access of appropriate computational resources, and in supporting these users to access and exploit these resources appropriately.

Grant support

We have a proven track record in working with PIs to obtain funding for dedicated Research Software Engineering posts and can offer assistance to you for your next grant application.

Working with organisations such as the Software Sustainability Institute and the UK community of Research Software Engineers, we engage with funding providers to demonstrate the importance of research software engineers in modern research.

Supporting lecturers

We work with University of Sheffield lecturers to assist them in leveraging modern research software in their teaching.

A recent success story in this area is the work we did with Dr Marta Milo of the Department of Biomedical Science in the development of the BMS353 module. Modern interactive, cloud-based, open-source technologies were combined with innovative teaching methodologies to develop a highly successful course.

We give talks and seminars on the use of research software in teaching -an example of which is the talk on Project Jupyter and SageMathCloud at the 2016 Chemical Engineering teaching away-day.

Support of site licensed RSE software

The University of Sheffield’s IT department, IT Services, invests heavily in the provision of best-in-class commercial software applications for the benefit of the University’s students and researchers. We work with IT Services and software vendors such as Mathworks, Microsoft, Wolfram Research, Intel, NVIDIA, Maplesoft and NAG to provide training and support to members of the University to help maximise the impact of these investments.

Training, outreach and education

The group is involved in a range of training and outreach activities including Code Cafe, Software Carpentry and a full module in Parallel computing with GPUs.

Expertise

Areas of expertise within the team include:

  • code optimisation and performance
  • reproducibility and embedding good software engineering practice with your project or team
  • GPU computing and Deep Learning
  • statistical analysis and data visualisation
  • High Performance Computing for local/national/international/cloud systems
  • general software development
  • development of impact case studies
  • consultancy
  • training
  • education delivery and support

Our list of specialist expertise is constantly changing and improving so please contact us if you are unsure if we can support your research software needs or read more on what we do.

Contact Us

For queries relating to collaborating with the RSE team on projects: rse@sheffield.ac.uk

Information and access to JADE II and Bede.

Join our mailing list so as to be notified when we advertise talks and workshops by subscribing to this Google Group.

Queries regarding free research computing support/guidance should be raised via our Code clinic or directed to the University IT helpdesk.