As the month of February comes to an end, the days are (slowly!) getting longer. There is a hint of spring in the air, the first leaves are emerging, daffodils and tulip shoots are pushing through the soil. In fact, last weekend during a canal side walk, I saw a few beautiful yellow daffodils blooming along the path! In this time of transition, take a moment to read this newsletter and receive highlights from the research software community.
Open Data Day 2025 will be hosted from March 1st-7th 2025. It is maintained and supported by the Open Knowledge Foundation (OKFN) through the Open Knowledge Network.
Register for “Green computing with Green Algorithms”, an online Byte-sized RSE session scheduled for Thursday, March 6th 2025, 13:00-14:30 GMT/UTC (Free event, registration required).
Share your experience using FAIR principles for Research Software: Community Review Survey closes Friday, March 7th 2025.
The final event of SSI’s Research Software Practices in Social Sciences project “Lost in Your Code? Use Git to Stay on Track and Collaborate” will take place online on Thursday, March 20th 2025, 13:00-16:00 UK time (Free event, registration required).
Our next Imperial Research Software Community Coffee Hour meet-up will take place on Monday, March 24th 2025, 10:30-11:30 UK time, in the Senior Common Room (SCR) at South Kensington Campus. Get in touch if you’d like to be added to the calendar invite for this and future sessions. Or simply drop by the SCR and look for the table with the Research Software Coffee Hour signs! Refreshments will be provided, with orders placed shortly after the session begins.
UNIVERSE-HPC will be hosting a one-day workshop - “HPC Ready: Developing RSE and HPC skills” - on Thursday, March 27th 2025, 10:00-16:00 (GMT/UTC). It will take place in person at the University of Edinburgh Bayes Centre, and online. Registration is open!
The 10th EasyBuild User Meeting (EUM25) will take place in Jülich, Germany from March 25th-27th 2025. Attendance is free and registration is open.
The Imperial Research Computing Showcase Day will be held on Wednesday, April 2nd 2025, 9.30-17.00 BST. The Research Computing Showcase Day will celebrate the work of researchers across Imperial who use Research Computing Services as part of their research activities. From computationally driven research through to enabling research on sensitive data sets, Research Computing Services provides a range of underpinning technologies. Registration is free and open!
Registration is open for ShinyConf 2025, the virtual conference for Shiny, an R (and Python) library for easy development of interactive web applications. It will be hosted online from April 9th-11th 2025.
Registration is now open for the Software Sustainability Institute’s Collaborations Workshop 2025. It will take place as a hybrid event from May 13th-15th 2025 at Stirling Court Hotel, University of Stirling.
PyCon UK 2025 is scheduled for September 19th-22nd 2025. It will take place at CONTACT, Manchester.
Call for submissions are open for the useR! 2025 conference which is scheduled for August 8th-10th 2025 at Duke University, North Carolina.
This month, in our series highlighting members of the College community helping to support research computing, we hear from Mahima Ghosh:
I am a Research Software Engineer at the Centre for Health Economics and Policy Innovation (CHEPI) within Imperial College Business School, where I develop computational tools that underpin evidence-based health policy research- named HealthGPS. My role involves designing and implementing software solutions that integrate complex data analytics, simulation models and deliver CI/CD pipelines to support strategic decision-making in healthcare economics.
My background involves Computer Science and Robotics from Imperial College London. I specialize in software engineering (agile delivery), AI/ML, cloud infrastructure and development of intelligent systems. I’ve contributed to innovative projects in healthcare AI and real-time diagnostic systems across Taiwan, India and UK. I am passionate about leveraging modern computational methods—ranging from high-performance computing to AI-enhanced algorithms—to translate vast datasets into actionable insights.
Through my work, I strive to ensure that our research software not only meets the evolving demands of healthcare but also remains agile enough to adapt to emerging challenges in policy and practice. My aim is to create software that serves both research and industry needs. This dynamic environment, at the crossroads of technology and healthcare, continually inspires me to explore new frontiers in research computing and contribute meaningfully to the transformation of health systems. My long-term goal is to get involved in personalized diagnostics that provide personalised insights into diagnosis and treatments, ultimately elevating the quality of life for people.
Our “Research Software of the Month” feature is taking a short break, but we’ll be back soon with more exciting tools and applications to showcase.
In the meantime, we’re inviting suggestions for future RSotM features. Do you have a piece of research software you’ve developed or used that you’d like to see highlighted? Perhaps you’ve worked with software that has an Imperial connection, or you use an open-source tool in your research workflow that you think the community should know about, even if it’s not linked to Imperial.
Please feel free to reach out to us with your suggestions for RSotM at rse-committee@imperial.ac.uk.
Invest in Open Infrastructure (IOI) have published a report on “The State of Open Research Software Infrastructure”. You can find out more in IOI’s recent blog post and find the full report on Zenodo.
£3.5m has been awarded to the team of academics behind the Hidden REF for the 5-year E-TIE (Embedding Trust in Evaluation) project which will continue work to recognise the hidden roles and outputs that underpin successful research and bring this into REF 2029. You can read more in University of Southampton’s news article.
Want to know about how Imperial’s research-related conservations are doing on Bluesky? Read this blog on “Are Imperial publications gaining attention on Bluesky?”.
Whether you are new to R package development or you are an experienced developer, read the blog on “Building an R package using {fusen}” to explore how {fusen} can support with the development.
Listen to Peter Schmidt’s conversation with Meag Doherty and Zihao Lu shining a light on UX/UI design in research, in a recent Code for Thought podcast “ByteSized RSE: Design with a capital D - Zihao Lu and Meag Doherty”.
In another Code for Thought podcast, “An Emerging Voice - Deborah Udoh”, Peter Schmidt talks to Deborah Udoh whom he met at RSECon24. They talk about Deborah’s journey in STEM.
Thinking about the sustainability and consistency of research software developed by a research group? Then read this blog on “Ten reasons to implement code management practices early in a research group”
The Imperial Research Software Community Slack workspace is a place for general community discussion as well as featuring channels for individuals interested in particular tools or topics. If you’re an OpenFOAM user, why not join the #OpenFOAM channel where regular code review sessions are announced (amongst other CFD-related discussions…). Users of the Nextflow workflow tool can find other Imperial Nextflow users in #nextflow. You can find other R developers in #r-users and there is the #DeepLearners channel for AI/ML-related questions and discussion. Take a look at the other available channels by clicking the “+” next to “Channels” in the Slack app and selecting “Browse channels”.
If you want to start your own group around a tool, programming language or topic not currently represented, feel free to create a new channel and advertise it in #general.
If you need support with your code, seek no more! The Central RSE Team, within the Research Computing Service is here to help. Have a look at the variety of ways the team can work with you:
All the documentation, tutorials and howtos for using Imperial’s HPC are available in the Imperial RCS User Guide. See also the Research Computing Service’s Research Computing Tips series for a variety of helpful tips for using RCS resources and related tools and services.
Imperial’s Research Software Directory provides details of a range of research software and tools developed by groups and individuals at the College. If you’d like to see your software included in the directory, you can open a pull request in the GitHub repository or get in touch with the Research Software Community Committee.
Drop us a line with anything you’d like included in the newsletter, ideas about how it could be improved, or even offer to guest-edit a future edition! rse-committee@imperial.ac.uk.
If you’re reading this on the web and would like to receive the next newsletter directly to your inbox then please subscribe to our Research Software Community Mailing List.
This issue of the Research Software Community Newsletter was edited by Saranjeet Kaur Bhogal. All previous newsletters are available in our online archive.