September 2025 Newsletter

The University of Sheffield Research Software Engineering Community Newsletter September 2025

Welcome to the September 2025 newsletter for the research software community at The University of Sheffield, featuring news, opportunities, events and training for you.

News

• ConvRSE
  • Trustee and Vice-President of the Society of Research Software Engineering and SSI Fellow Mike Simpson has setup this useful hub for mental health information and support for the research software community.
• Volunteer to review the Software Sustainability Institutes first round of Research Software Maintenance Funding. Deadline to apply is 2025-09-03.
• Society of Research Software Engineering Community Survey 2025
  • The Society of Research Software Engineering are carrying out their annual survey again, if you write code in a research setting consider completing the survey. Closes 2025-09-26.
• REF2029 broadens inclusion criteria
  • “as part of a strategic priority of driving the inclusion of a broader range of roles, career stages and people involved in research, those outputs don’t need to be authored by academic staff. They can be led by any author, or equivalent, who has made a significant research contribution to the output – whether that’s an academic, technician, research manager or research software engineer…indeed any role that enables or leads research.”
• Early access to Isambard-AI and Dawn AIRR Supercomputers
  • UKRI has announced calls for access to Isambard-AI and Dawn AIRR super computers, via either a “Gateway route” or a “Rapid Access route” (industry only). The Gateway route offers up to 10,000 GPU-hours, to be used within 3 months, for first-time users of AI supercomputing resources testing of (novel) algorithms, code, and workflows benchmarking of algorithms, code, and workflows before applying for larger AI Research Resource (AIRR) opportunities
  • If you’re thinking of applying, don’t hesitate to e-mail research-it@sheffield.ac.uk for support.

Events

Upcoming events in Sheffield

• OpenFest2025:
  • 2025-09-02 to 2025-09-05
  • Sheffield’s annual Open Research conference co-delivered by the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University returns with three days of online talks on the theme Open Research and Equity, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. Follow the link for the programme and register for individual sessions. Staff and students can register or attend the fourth day in-person event for the Open Research Award ceremony and networking opportunities.
• ReproducibiliTea Sheffield Journal Club
  • 2025-10-21 13-14:00 Room 12.1.91 (Level 1) of the Charles Street Building, Sheffield Hallam Campus.
  • Dr Ester Ehiyazaryan-White, Senior Lecturer in Childhood Studies will go through the paper The Conundrum of Sharing Research Data.

Upcoming external events

• Research Software Asia Australia 2025:
  • 2025-09-17 to 2025-09-19 (Online)
  • This RSE Asia Association and the RSE Association of Australia and New Zealand. The theme for this year is “Connecting with Community”.
• 35th annual Astronomical Data Analysis Software and Systems (ADASS):
  • 2025-11-09 to 2025-11-13 in Görlitz, Germany.

Articles, Blogs, Papers & Podcasts

Articles & Blogs

• Research Software Maintenance Fund: analysis of Round 1 Expressions of Interest
  • Many of you will be aware of the Software Sustainability Institutes call for Expressions of Interest (EoIs) for their first round of Research Software Maintenance Funding. This blog posts shares details of the EoIs were assessed and explains how reviewers decided which would be taken forward as full applications along with some general feedback. Useful reading for future rounds.
• Code Plagiarism and AI Create New Challenges for Publishing Integrity - The Scholarly Kitchen:
  • Daniel S. Katz, Mohammad Hosseini and Scott C. Edmunds explore author, reviewer, and publisher ethics and responsibilities related to the use of AI in coding and publishing research software.

Papers

• [PRE-PRINT] Advancing Research Software Engineering with AI: A Research Framework:
  • “The rapid adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI (GenAI) tools is transforming the creation, maintenance, and dissemination of research software. Despite their growing prevalence, the implications of these technologies for Research Software Engineering (RSE) practices remain underexplored. This work introduces AI4RSE, an emerging research domain focused on the integration of AI into the development lifecycle of research software.”

Podcasts

• Code for Thought : Parsl - A Python Library for Parallel Programming with Dan Katz and Ben Clifford
  • Parallel programming is hard. Say Hi to Parsl a Python library and tool that aims to make the task a bit easier.
• Code for Thought : Let’s Go Atomic (with Design) with Brad Frost:
  • Brad Frost is the author of a book called Atomic Design, in which he tries to help UI/UX designers improve their workflow and approach and create digital apps.

Opportunities

• Software Sustainability Institute Fellowship Programme 2026
  • Applications are now open for the SSI’s Fellowship Programme. Deadline for applications is 2025-10-06.
• JOSS are looking for Editors
  • The Journal of Open Source Software have a call out for volunteers to help with editing the submissions they receive. Deadline is 2025-09-15.
• Better Scientific Software Fellowship Program 2026:
  • Applications for the 2026 Better Scientific Software (BSSw) Fellowship Program will be accepted through October 31,
    1. NB Only open to US-based institutions that are able to receive Federal funding.
  • For more information see their FAQ and/or register for the Webinar which will be held 2025-09-16.

Jobs

Check for advertised RSE and RSE-adjacent roles at the RSE society’s vacancies board.

• Digital Research Roles at University of Exeter
  • Exeter are investing in Digital Research Infrastructure with a number of Research IT team roles, including Digital Research Data Lead and Digital Research Support Specialist roles. Closing dates are 2025-09-10.

Community

Digital Research Practice Support Community

The DRPS community is a group for people that support researchers in carrying out research in the digital age. Meetings are held monthly, with discussions around events, training and opportunities related to the field.

You can join the google group here to stay informed.

The next meeting is scheduled for 2pm on Wednesday 2025-09-17.

LunchBytes

LunchBytes are short talks from the research community on research software, data, and infrastructure.

More information on future LunchBytes will be coming out over the coming months, so sign up to the RSE mailing list if you’d like to learn more about research software and associated practices, or get in contact with Farhad if you would like to share what you know at an upcoming session!

LunchBytes needs YOU

LunchBytes are organised by and for the research software community at The University of Sheffield. If you’d like to curate a session on a topic or present something, get in touch by emailing lunchbytes-organisers-group@sheffield.ac.uk or suggest topics on the jamboard.

Support

Code Clinics

Why not come to a Code Clinic? We’re keen to help you.

Code Clinics are fortnightly supported sessions run by the RSE team and IT Services’ Research IT team. They are open to anyone at TUoS writing code for research to get help with programming problems and general advice on best practices.

At each session, members of the RSE and/or Research IT teams will be available to review code, advise, troubleshoot, and suggest ways to improve your computational workflows.

Research IT HPC Drop In

HPC Drop-In sessions are providing assistance with HPC related user issues such as challenges in scaling an application from desktop to supercomputer. We are considering extending the number of our sessions to two or three weekly. These interactive sessions could provide a better interface with our users than our non-interactive ticketing system. These sessions are advertised on the HPC mailing list.

Research IT Consultations

Alongside the HPC Drop-In sessions, Research IT are also running one to one consultations to solve in depth user specific problems. These consultations can be booked via our webpage. If you are interested please visit the following link: https://students.sheffield.ac.uk/it-services/research.

Sheffield RSE Team

The Sheffield RSE Team aims to collaborate with you to help improve your research software. They can provide dedicated staff to ensure that you can deliver excellent research software engineering on your research projects.

Research IT

Research IT directly supports research, both academic and commercial. We provide large scale HPC systems, advice on everything from statistics to ML to data pipelines and training for both students and staff.

Working with academics, our staff are embedded within research groups on both long and short term engagements.