What we learned about research software careers from a recent international workshop
Eric A. Jensen and Daniel S. Katz • October 24, 2023
The URSSI Charting the Course project convened a focused participatory workshop at the IEEE eScience conference in October 2023 in Cyprus to gather international perspectives on key challenges in the research software field. At this workshop, a nuanced, in-depth discussion unfolded around the metrics and incentives that shape careers in research software internationally. This helped to clarify key issues and potential solutions that have been explored in different countries. Participating in this workshop were professionals involved in research software at different levels, including two individuals who manage large teams of research software engineers (RSEs) in different countries.
Elevate Research Software: Co-creating a Digital Roadmap
Eric A. Jensen and Daniel S. Katz • October 4, 2023
As algorithms become the new lab assistants in contemporary research, software is no longer a sidebar—it’s the headline. The need to recognize and support software contributions has become imperative. How do we measure and extend the impact of research software? How do we integrate it into academic evaluations? One lens in which to view these types of questions is policy, which can be thought of as involving, research, organizing, and advocacy.
Introducing 'Charting the Course: Policy and Planning for Sustainable Research Software'
Eric A. Jensen • June 22, 2023
Hello research software community! In this blog post, I am going to introduce myself and the research software policy project I am working on with Professor Daniel S. Katz at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign (and Principal Investigator of the project). I am a social scientist with 20+ years of professional experience working on social, policy and institutional aspects of science and technology.
Announcing 4 new grants for URSSI
Karthik Ram, Nic Weber, Kyle Niemeyer, and Daniel S. Katz • September 4, 2022
For many of us who develop, maintain, and use research software, the issue of software sustainability or lack thereof has been an issue near and dear to our hearts. After numerous efforts to address different aspects of this issue over the past decade, we secured funding from the National Science Foundation in 2017 to build US community around this area and architect what an ideal institute might look like. After several workshops involving the wider research community and several pilot activities, we formulated a plan for an institute.
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