EPCC at RSECon24

The annual Research Software Engineering Conference is always a little different to other events. Firstly, it’s organised by volunteers from throughout the RSE community which ensures the programme truly targets the needs of the community and secondly, its format is designed to build collaborations and enable discussions that will shape the community's future.  

Now in its eighth year and expected to attract over 400 attendees, this conference reflects the growing strength of the RSE community. For many years, EPCC and the Software Sustainability Institute have been strong supporters of RSECon, and 2024 is no exception. Both organisations are proud to serve as Bronze sponsors for this year's event.  

The community theme of the conference is particularly evident this year because, in a twist to the usual format, the conference format includes a “community day” which is entirely devoted to sessions designed to help build communities around key topics.  

EPCC will be well represented throughout the event with staff giving talks, workshops and leading community sessions. Andy Turner and I will run a community “birds of a feather” session on “GreenRSE” which aims to highlight and understand the role of RSEs in the adoption of more environmentally responsible research software practices. This will combine a morning session with talks from leaders in this field, including funder representatives, and an afternoon session to develop a community roadmap to help identify a path forward. EPCC staff are also presenting work which examines the environmental impact of large scale HPC services using data from ARCHER2 as a case study.

It’s not all about the environmental impact of software. Chris Wood will run a workshop for RSEs on Triplestores and the SPARQL Query Language, Kara Moraw will present her work on mining Github repositories, and Giacomo Peru will introduce the EVERSE project which is working to develop a European Virtual Institute for Research Software Excellence. Nick Brown and Andy Turner will be part of HPCRSE@RSECon24, the third annual meeting of the HPC Research Software Engineers community. See Nick's explainer video for more information.

The diversity of these activities reflects the wide range of expertise at EPCC and underscores its commitment to advancing the field of research software engineering while fostering a collaborative and forward-thinking community.

RSECon24: https://rsecon24.society-rse.org