RSE-at-SUN/RSE-at-SUN

Research Software Engineering (RSE) Group at Stellenbosch University, South Africa Welcome to ** RSE@SUN ** - the Research Software Engineering (RSE) Group at Stellenbosch University . RSE@SUN has the distinction of being **the first dedicated RSE Group in Africa** (offering Research Software Engineering services to researchers across all Faculties and Schools within the university). What is an RSE? The term 'Research Software Engineer' (RSE) was coined by the UK-based Software Sustainability Institute in 2012, on the recognition that research is increasingly dependent on software, and that such software requires "people who combine professional software expertise with an understanding of research ". Skilled RSEs support researchers in fulfilling the expectations from funders for Open Science, and funders are increasingly requiring the involvement of RSEs in data- and computationally-intensive research. The important innovation of RSE Groups established by leading UK universities pioneered a novel platform to make RSE skills more widely available. What do RSEs do? RSEs provide support to researchers (and external clients) with services ranging from training , consultancy , and custom code development (or rehabilitation) . RSEs assist researchers to 'tidy up' code in preparation for publication (with code-sharing increasingly important to credibility), and help researchers establish good practices (teaching and supporting adoption of collaborative version control, sustainable code development, and appropriate licensing ). RSEs support researchers to progressively transition to increasingly sophisticated levels of computational work, and explore cutting-edge technologies : e.g. starting from simple scripts on a single laptop, towards reproducible analysis pipelines and HPC- or cloud-enabled Big Data analyses, simulations, or deployment of AI/ML models. RSEs can work with researchers to develop high-impact grant proposals that leverage the advantages of software engineering in computational research, increa …