Research Software Engineering @ RWTH Aachen University


Activities and News

A regularly updated overview of Research Software Engineering activities at RWTH Aachen, including courses, talks, surveys, publications, guidelines, and community events.

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Latest Activity


Thesis Topics

Interested in software engineering for scientific research? We now offer several thesis topics in Research Software Engineering, covering both empirical/theoretical work and practical tool development. The topics range from analyzing research software development practices to implementing concrete improvements in documentation, architecture, testing, and quality assurance.

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Papers and Materials

A curated collection of prominent RWTH-related papers and further resources on Research Software Engineering, including key publications, white papers, guidelines, and background material.

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A Definition and Short Introduction to RSE

Definition: Research Software Engineering (RSE)

Research Software Engineering (RSE) is the use of Software Engineering practices in research applications, i.e. software created for and primarily used in scientific research projects (according to Wikipedia).

RSE addresses the "crisis" in software development that results from the need of increasingly complex software, reliable and reproducible results, sustainable reusability and adaptivity of software, and, of course, efficient development. The term RSE has become a collective term to address these challenges in a holistic form. In other words, RSE adresses developers, models, tools chains, code, and to some extend also associated data in a development project.


Goals of this Website

RSE targets the development project and, in particular, developer effectiveness as well as the correctness and usefulness of the code (and lesser the code efficiency). RSE uses established Software Engineering techniques, methods and practices and adapts them to the engineering of research software.

In addition, RSE addresses management and organizational issues in research software development, i.e. what team leaders and deciders should know, as well as community building.

There are also other forms of assistance at the RWTH: E.g. when the challenge is

This website is voluntarily maintained by the organizers of RSE at RWTH Aachen University and may slowly grow with additional information and material. This website is
not expected to become a complete overview of the field, but of current activities.


Community: Via this Website and the RSE Mailing List

If you are interested in RSE at RWTH Aachen University and related topics, please become a member of the moderated mailing list for the RSE community at RWTH Aachen University.

This mailing list will report on RSE-related local, Germany wide and global events as well as further opportunities.


Organizers of RSE at RWTH


Supporting Organization Structures

If you are interested in further information, please join the RSE community at RWTH Aachen University. or contact us.