RSEs: Recognition and Career Development for Researchers who Code in Australia

We are in the initial stages of building an Australian RSE community to raise awareness of the role and bring the community together. In Australia, the term RSE includes academics/researchers who code but are lacking recognition and metrics needed to progress their academic career; professional software engineers working in the research space; and system administrators who maintain research systems.

Our interim steering committee can be found in Committee.md

Join our email group https://groups.google.com/forum/?#!forum/rse-nz-au

Who are Research Software Engineers?

From the RSE UK website:

Are you an RSE?

If you answer one or more of these questions, then you are probably an RSE:

• Are you employed to develop software for research?
• Are you spending more time developing software than conducting research?
• Are you employed as a postdoctoral researcher, even though you predominantly work on software development?
• Are you the person who does computers in your research group?
• Are you sometimes not named on research papers despite playing a fundamental part in developing the software used to create them?

• Do you lack the metrics needed to progress your academic career, like papers and conference presentations, despite having made a significant contribution through software?

  Is Australia on its own when it comes to Research Software Engineers?

There is a wide international community that started in the UK. Every chapter is different and has different definitions. For example from the RSE UK website:

A growing number of people in academia combine expertise in programming with an intricate understanding of research. Although this combination of skills is extremely valuable, these people lack a formal place in the academic system.

There are also links to the other International communities here: https://rse.ac.uk/community/international-rse-groups/