I am really proud that with this edition we start the eighth year in a row of Imperial RS Community Newsletters. Time goes by really fast! During this time, we have advertised hundreds of events, promoted tons of fantastic software, mostly developed at Imperial, and highlighted the incredible journey and work that members of the RS community at Imperial have done. I hope all of this has made a difference - it has, in my case - and that we can count on the support of our community to keep our newsletters, and community activities, going for many more years. Remember that you can get involved with the newsletter any time, by simply sharing it with colleagues and friends, but also by sharing interesting resources with us or even volunteering to guest-edit a future edition! Get in touch! Get involved!
On Tuesday 10th February, 10:00-16:30, STEP-UP, in collaboration with University of Cambridge Data Service and Reproducible Research Cambridge are organising an event in Cambridge as part of Love Data Week on Connecting research data and software communities: sharing experiences and creating opportunities. Registration is open via TicketTailor.
Are you interested in exploring the role of National Research and Education Networks (NRENs) in supporting research software development and sustainability in the Asian region? Register for the online session on “Connecting NRENs and Research Software in Asia” on 11th February 2026, 07:00 - 08:00 UTC. This session is a part of the series titled “Research Software and NRENs in Asia” and is hosted by the RSE Asia Association.
Following on from the successful, and heavily oversubscribed, Software Carpentry workshop that was run in early December, STEP-UP, in collaboration with RSLondon, will be running another Software Carpentry workshop, 16th-18th February 2026. We’re again looking for a significant number of helpers to support learners during this workshop. If you’re able to spare a day during this period to help out with bash shell (16th Feb), git version control (17th Feb) or introductory Python programming (18th Feb), please get in touch with the STEP-UP team to volunteer. For anyone interested in joining the workshop as an attendee, see the sign-up form for more details and registration.
Applications are now open for the next cohort of the rOpenSci Champions Program 2026-2027, a 12-month Spanish-language program designed to strengthen open science and sustainable research software communities across Latin America. Applications close on the 20th February 2026, and both, Champions and Mentors, are invited to apply. Participants receive training, 1-on-1 mentoring, project development support, and a participation stipend. Learn more and apply in the programme webpage.
Registrations are open for “Green software use on HPC”, 26th February 2026 (10:00-15:30) This workshop introduces environmental sustainability principles in the context of high performance computing (HPC) systems. No knowledge of environmental sustainability principles is assumed. Aimed at all stakeholders in HPC use (e.g. researchers, RSEs, funders). This course will take place face-to-face at The Alan Turing Institute, British Library, London. For more info and to register please see the details on the event page.
The first Sustainability Conference for Responsible Research Computing (SC4RC) takes place 4th-8th May 2026 in Geneva, Switzerland and online. The conference is currently accepting abstract submissions, the submission deadline is 27th February 2026.
deRSE26 - the Conference for Research Software Engineering in Germany - will take place 3rd-5th March 2026 in Stuttgart, Germany. The call for abstracts is now closed but event registration is open with the “early bird” rate available until 31st January.
The Software Sustainability Institute’s Collaborations Workshop 2026 will take place in Belfast, 28th-30th April 2026. The CW26 team have recently announced the theme for this year’s workshop - Strengthening the Research Software Community. Get your tickets! See the workshop webpage for further details and registration.
Registration & Submissions Open: Durham HPC Days 2026! The Durham HPC Days will take place again in June this year, from the 15th-19th June 2026. This annual event brings together researchers, developers, and practitioners to explore the frontiers of high-performance computing, data analysis, and scientific innovation. Make sure to check out our summary video and website from 2025’s event for inspiration - and submit your proposals for submissions by the 31st January 2026.
EGI (originally the European Grid Infrastructure), will be holding their 2026 conference - EGI2026 - in Ghent, Belgium, 21st-25th September 2026. They’ve released a save the date announcement.
This month, in our series highlighting members of the Imperial community helping to support research computing, we hear from Melissa Jade Mitchell:
Hi I’m Melissa Jade! I’m currently part of Imperial’s Research Software Engineer and High‑Performance Computing Experience Programme, a step I took not just to sharpen my technical skills but to experience a world beyond the academic bubble. After spending years deep in biophysics research, I wanted to see how software, collaboration, and real-world problem‑solving come together across disciplines and this programme has been the perfect place to do that.
My path into coding wasn’t glamorous at first. During my bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering, I needed money, and my cousin nudged me into building websites. That small push opened a door I didn’t expect. From there, MATLAB became my closest companion during my engineering degree and later my MSc in Biomaterials & Tissue Engineering. By the time I began my PhD in biophysics, I was fully immersed in molecular dynamics simulations, HPC workflows, and the joy (and occasional chaos) of writing analysis tools that actually make researchers’ lives easier.
During my PhD, I built IMANI, named after my daughter a Python package for analysing molecular interactions in nanosecond‑scale MD simulations. IMANI grew from a personal need into a tool that helps researchers explore drug delivery, membrane behaviour, hydration patterns, and molecular orientations.
Outside of code and simulations, I’m a big football fan and a loyal Chelsea supporter, which means I’ve developed a healthy tolerance for emotional turbulence. Now at Imperial, I’m excited to help research groups strengthen their software, build tools they can trust, and bring the same sense of curiosity and craftsmanship that shaped my own journey.
This month, our Research Software of the Month is uDALES, developed in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
uDALES is an open-source, high-resolution large-eddy simulation (LES) code developed in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London to model turbulent flow, heat transfer, and pollutant dispersion in complex urban environments. The code is designed from the outset for high-performance computing (HPC), using MPI-based domain decomposition to enable efficient simulations on large parallel systems. By explicitly resolving turbulence around buildings and vegetation and coupling momentum, scalars, radiation, and surface energy balance, uDALES allows detailed investigation of urban microclimate and air-quality processes at metre-scale resolution.
uDALES has been extensively deployed on HPC platforms to study a wide range of urban environmental problems, including street-canyon ventilation, pollutant dispersion, thermal effects of urban morphology, and the role of vegetation in modifying flow and exposure. The model has been applied to both idealised and realistic urban configurations, supporting systematic analysis of urban heterogeneity and providing a bridge between building-resolving LES and parametrised urban canopy models. Its scalability enables simulations over neighbourhood-scale domains while retaining the physical fidelity needed to interrogate urban-scale transport and mixing mechanisms.
The continued development of uDALES has been supported by the Imperial Research Software Engineering (RSE) Hub, whose members joined the development team for a week-long software sprint in August 2024. This collaboration helped professionalise the project’s GitHub workflow, with a particular focus on establishing robust continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI–CD) pipelines, automated testing, and improved code quality control. These advances have enhanced the reliability, reproducibility, and sustainability of uDALES, supporting its ongoing use as a community-facing, HPC-ready research code.
SocRSE Mentoring Scheme 2026 - now open for applications - deadline: 3rd February. For more details and the application form, visit their website, or send them an email mentoring@society-rse.org for any other questions. They’re happy to help!
The 2026 International RSE Survey is now open for submissions. The RSE Survey produces an incredibly valuable trove of data that anyone can use to understand the RSE community, including national associations, funders and policymakers. Please support the RSE community by completing the survey.
Queen’s University Belfast is conducting an online survey to better understand the global state and impact of Fortran and the Fortran community. If you work with Fortran codebases, please complete the survey and support the community. You can also read further information on the survey, including “Participant Information Sheet” and a reference copy of the “Informed Consent” (which is part of the online form as well).
The Software Sustainability Institute has recently announced the timeline for the second round of the Research Software Maintenance Fund which will open on 28th January 2026. In addition, SSI has also announced details of the 13 projects awarded funding through round 1 of the RSMF.
A recent GitHub “Rubber Duck Thursdays” stream looked at building a countdown app with GitHub Copilot – a great way to pick up some tips on using Copilot and see development of a small project in action.
Sticking with the theme of AI-assisted coding, take a look at Eric W. Bridgeford et al.’s paper on Ten Simple Rules for AI-Assisted Coding in Science.
And a word of caution when using AIs! Read this blogpost on Model Collapse to understand the caveats of using LLMs for coding - or in general. Quite scary: Are we knowledge generating or merely output generating. Are we adding information to the world, or just words?
If you are considering to explore other options besides GitHub, this guide on “Code hosting options beyond GitHub” might help you make the transition, in particular to Codeberg and GitLab.
A recent blog post from the STEP-UP project looks at the current landscape of training for dRTPs”, reporting on the “Building a comprehensive and coordinated training landscape for dRTPs” event that was organised by STEP-UP in London on 27th November 2025.
In a blog post on Mental Health Challenges and Solutions from the Research Software Community, Mike Simpson reports on a recent edition of a talk he’s been giving as part of his Software Sustainability Institute Fellowship, titled “ConveRSE - Let’s Talk About Mental Health”.
An interesting post on NVIDIA’s developer blog looks at “Reducing CUDA Binary Size to Distribute cuML on PyPI”, explaining how the cuML team made various optimisations to reduce the cuML library size so that wheels can be distributed on PyPI.
Ever thought that documentation for an open source tool you use could be improved? Why not have a go at doing it yourself? Julia Evans’ post on “A data model for Git (and other docs updates)” talks about creating a data model for git and updating some of the core documentation pages.
Do you use the R-universe platform? Now you can test the R-universe build workflow from your own GitHub repository. Check this blog post to learn how!
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:
The Research Computing and Data Science team at Imperial’s Early Career Researcher Institute run workshops in programming, statistics, data science, software engineering, Linux, HPC, AI for programming, LaTeX, and much more, which are available to the Imperial community. Follow the registration information on the RCDS page to sign up.
All the documentation, tutorials and howtos for using Imperial’s HPC are available in the Imperial RCS User Guide.
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.
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This issue of the Research Software Community Newsletter was edited by Diego Alonso Alvarez. All previous newsletters are available in our online archive.