Why we need Research Software Engineers for Reproducible Research 🤓

Today I want to share with you why I believe we need research software engineers (RSEs) for open and reproducible research.

I am a trainer for open science and reproducible research. I help researchers by giving them achievable steps that they can take in order to make their work more open and reproducible.

Sometimes I show them, which tools I use for making my work open and reproducible...

... but I cannot do that with all researchers as for most it would be overwhelming and frustrating, as my toolkit is quite technical.

Now, what I would suggest, is that we don't make all researchers learn all this stuff. They have enough on their plate. Instead we should introduce/grow a new kind of research staff to help with these kinds of computational issues: research software engineers (RSEs).

RSEs make research better by:

• Developing helpful tools/software
• Helping researchers with finding + learning good tools
• Supporting researchers with (computational) reproducibility

Further reading

• My useR! 2021 keynote on the topic (slides / video)
• Open Science Services for Good Scientific Practice in a Digital Age (poster)
• An environment for sustainable research software in Germany and beyond: current state, open challenges, and call for action, doi: 10.12688/f1000research.23224.2​
• Improving Software Engineering in Biostatistics: Challenges and Opportunities, doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2301.11791​
• RSE organisations in various places: https://society-rse.org/international-rse-organisations/​
• ​RSE awesome list, Hifis

Upcoming RSE events

Munich, Germany in a few days: RSE Munich Meetup​

Jena, Germany in September: deRSE unconference​

Other: check your local RSE associations's website

That's all for today 👋

All the best,

Heidi

P.S. Check out this exciting event on research assessment (that I am moderating), both online (Zoom) and in-person (LMU Munich). For details, see the website of the LMU Open Science Center.

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