Welcome to the June 2026 newsletter for the research software community at The University of Sheffield, featuring news, opportunities, events and training for you.
RSE Call for Proposals 2026 is live
6 months at 0.5 FTE RSE collaboration is available for four projects, two of which are funded by the Henry Royce Institute and will support projects from Materials Science. Full details - Submission deadline is 1700 BST 10th July 2026
Hidden REF 2026 is open, and they’ve added new categories including environmental sustainability. - Submission deadline is 2026-09-13
FAIRLinked: Data FAIRification Tools for Materials Data Science
Peer code review in research software development: The research software engineer perspective
Sensitive data curation: evidence-based skills and training landscape for stakeholders
Test-Driven Data Analysis - The goal of this book is to reduce the frequency and severity of errors in all forms of data processing and analysis, from the simplest query to the most complex machine-learning data pipeline.
The Psychology of Software Teams - Available to preorder from 23rd June 2026, and due for publication 14th August 2026.
Exploring the usage of project management practices among digital research technical professionals (dRTPs) at the University of Sheffield - This survey explores the usage of project management practices among individuals working at the Univerist of Sheffield who categorise themselves as digital research technical professionals (dRTPs). Deadline: 10th July 2026
Exploring how Research Technicians and Technology & Skills Specialists (RTPs) engage with open research, the challenges faced, and what support, training, and recognition are needed - This survey focuses on how RTP roles contribute to strengthening research integrity, transparency, and reproducibility, and how these contributions are recognised and supported across institutions. We are also interested in understanding how the technician community is perceived, the challenges faced in engaging with open research, and what support, resources, or recognition could further enable RTPs to contribute to open and trustworthy science. Deadline: 15th June 2026
Impact of Generative AI on Software Development, Application and Licensing Models - Originally inspired by research software engineers from within materials modelling communities this survey aims to build our understanding and capture usage and adoption of Generative AI in the domain of Research Software Engineering. Results will be released at the end of July.
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 15th August 2026.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
For queries relating to collaborating with the RSE team on projects: rse@sheffield.ac.uk
Information and access to 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.
List of archived pages: Archive.