Welcome to the September 2026 newsletter for the research software community at The University of Sheffield, featuring news, opportunities, events and training for you.
Message-Passing Programming with MPI — Durham, 9–10 September As part of the ARCHER2 national supercomputer service, EPCC is running a face-to-face, hands-on course on “Message-Passing Programming with MPI” at Durham University on Wednesday 9th – Thursday 10th September, followed by an online tutorial session on the afternoon of Wednesday 16th September. Attendance is free for all academics and researchers.
CodeRefinery Workshop A free online CodeRefinery workshop covering research software best practices, running across two blocks: 22–24 September and 29 September – 1 October 2026.
2026 Bennett Oxford Symposium on Open Code in Science The Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science is hosting a two-day symposium bringing together researchers, developers, policymakers and others to explore the benefits of open and transparent code and software in science. 8–9 December 2026, Examination Schools, University of Oxford.
International Conference on Trustworthy Digital Infrastructure 2026 Hosted by The Alan Turing Institute at the Courthouse Hotel London Soho on Wednesday 16 September 2026 (International Identity Day), this conference showcases research and applied work on the trustworthy use of AI in Digital Public Infrastructure — covering identity, payments, data exchange, cybersecurity, public-service delivery and governance, alongside the geopolitical, legal, ethical and infrastructural risks involved.
Representing Python paths using pathlib
LWN’s write-up of Trey Hunner’s PyCon US 2026 talk making the case for dropping string-based file paths in favour of pathlib. A video of the talk is also available.
Should we still design code for humans? A reflection on whether software design still matters in a world where coding agents write most of the code, and what that means for keeping humans in the loop.
What are code reviews even for? Brian Houck on what code review actually delivers beyond defect detection, and why AI-generated code volumes shouldn’t push us to automate it away.
Maybe We Shouldn’t Be Reviewing All This Code A rejoinder from Rachel Laycock, arguing that the answer to AI-generated code volume isn’t faster review but less review, with knowledge sharing and design conversations moved earlier in the process.
Qualitative Data Sharing with Care: A Concise Guide A short guide on the practicalities and ethics of sharing qualitative research data.
Pystebin — executable Python pastebin A pastebin that runs Python in the browser — handy when you need to demonstrate some code and share it.
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 16th September 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.
The Sheffield RSE Team aims to [collaborate][rse-servuce] 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.