History of the RSE Conference
A brief history of the RSE movement
- 2012 The term "Research Software Engineer" or RSE first coined (at a workshop in Queen’s College, Oxford)
- 2012 First RSE Group founded at UCL
- 2013 First workshop for RSEs held in Oxford
- 2014 UK RSE Association established
- 2015 First RSE fellowships (awarded by EPSRC)
- 2016 First RSE conference (held in Manchester)
- 2016 German RSE Association comes together
- 2017 Dutch RSE Association launches
- 2018 Nordic RSE and US RSE Associations launch
- 2018 First of multiple RSE professors across the UK
- 2019 Belgian and Australian and New Zealand RSE Associations launch
- 2019 The Society of RSE founded as a charitable incorporated organization (replacing the UK RSE Association)
Previous RSECon events
The annual RSE conference is a major event bringing together RSEs from around the world. Let us take a look back at the conference over the years.
RSECon23
- Programme Chair: Ed Bennett
- Location: Swansea University
- Dates: 5th - 7th September 2023
- Website: https://rsecon23.society-rse.org/
For the first time, attendees were welcomed to the conference both in-person and online. To enable the organising committee to put together a coherent and compelling programme, they increased the number of submission categories and chose four themes, notably working with and as researchers, open science and open source, working with industry and commercialisation, and tooling for research software engineering.
RSECon2022
- Programme Chair: Mark Turner
- Location: Newcastle University
- Dates: 6th - 8th September 2022
- Website: https://rsecon2022.society-rse.org/
The organising committee received a record number of submissions, totalling 129, 64 of which were accepted. They also initiated a new tradition of an awards ceremony to recognise the achievements of three people over the past 12 months, and made recordings of all sessions freely available online to take a step towards a more inclusive and accessible conference.
SeptembRSE
- Chairs: Christopher Woods & Martin Callaghan
- Location: Online
- Dates: 6th - 30th September 2021
- Website: https://septembrse.society-rse.org/
The RSE community reunited online for SeptembRSE, which was an opportunity to meet and discuss the development and recognition of research software over the course of the month. The online sessions were a mix of keynotes, talks, panel discussions, workshops and community moments, forming an online celebration of research software engineering.
RSEConUK 2019
- Programme Chair: Andrew Edmondson
- Location: University of Birmingham
- Dates: 17th - 19th September 2019
- Website: https://rseconuk2019.sched.com/
The conference was extended from two to three days, allowing for more sessions and colocated events, including an HPC Champions Workshop and Research Software Alliance (ReSA) drop-in session. It was also the first year an RSE Worldwide session was run, featuring speakers from US-RSE, DE-RSE and NL-RSE.
RSE Conference 2018
- Conference Chair: Louise Brown
- Location: University of Birmingham
- Dates: 3rd - 4th September 2018
- Website: https://socrse.github.io/legacy-website/conf2018/
The organising committee sought to increase the number of attendees to approximately 300, ensuring an international mix, while providing a programme full of interesting talks, discussion sessions and practical workshops. James Grant and Andy Turner also organised a satellite event for RSEs involved in Tier-2/Regional HPC.
RSE Conference 2017
- Conference Chair: Christopher Woods
- Location: Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester
- Dates: 7th - 8th September 2017
- Website: https://socrse.github.io/legacy-website/conf2017/
The conference featured a mix of talks, posters, discussion workshops and hands-on tutorials. All together these provided attendees with the opportunity to learn new skills, discuss the state of research software engineering, network and share knowledge.
RSE Conference 2016
- Conference Chair: Robert Haines
- Location: Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester
- Dates: 15th - 16th September 2016
- Website: https://ukrse.github.io/conf2016.html
The series of conferences was kicked off by the RSE Network, sponsored by EPSRC. It was the first conference to focus exclusively on the issues that affect people who write and use software in research, and the organising committee were keen to hear from people who may not typically attend conferences. Over the course of two days, attendees were able to listen to talks, as well as partake in workshops, a poster competition and the UKRSE AGM.