Research Software Engineering @ RWTH Aachen University
A regularly updated overview of Research Software Engineering activities at RWTH
Aachen, including courses, talks, surveys, publications, guidelines, and
community events.
Read more about activities and news
Latest Activity
-
Bernhard Rumpe re-elected to the steering committee of the GI Special
Interest Group RSE. Three years after its founding, the Special Interest
Group on Research Software Engineering (Fachgruppe RSE) of the German
Informatics Society (GI) held new elections, in which its steering committee
was partially confirmed and complemented by new members. Bernhard Rumpe, who
was already involved as an initiator of the group, has been confirmed as a
member of the steering committee for another three years.
- The German Research Foundation (DFG) has approved ARCH3S - A Software
Architecture Framework for FAIR and Sustainable Simulation Software for
funding under its Research Software Infrastructures programme. This
collaborative project of RWTH Aachen University, Kiel University, and
Technische Universität Braunschweig addresses the challenge of keeping
scientific simulation software understandable, maintainable, and reusable as
it evolves over many years. ARCH3S will develop tools to reconstruct software
architectures, identify structural weaknesses, and recommend improvements. By
supporting automated, behaviour-preserving refactoring, the project aims to
make simulation software more modular, adaptable, and sustainable. Working
closely with research groups across different scientific disciplines, the
project will test and refine its tools on real-world simulation software to
build a framework that serves the research software community.
- since April 25: Guidelines for software development at RWTH Aachen University.
- This is a joint effort with the MSS profile area, FZJ, ITC, RWTH ZHV and
the Innovation GmbH. It is meant to support, among others, the RWTH EXC as
well as its cluster proposals.
- This activity has been embedded into the more general activities of the
joint GI RSE and the deRSE Task Force on
“Guidelines for software development” and will come up with a common set of
guideline, possibily refined for RWTH specific possibilities, such as
extended support for sustainable development, or licensing restrictions.
- since April 26: RWTH is creating an “RSE Hub” in accordance to these
guidelines.
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.
Read more about thesis topics
A curated collection of prominent RWTH-related papers and further resources on
Research Software Engineering, including key publications, white papers,
guidelines, and background material.
Read more about papers
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
- to improve code efficiency, then please take advantage of the
RWTH HPC Consultation Hour;
- to identify the optimal algorithms, then consult StackOverflow the
appropriate literature, or ask a search engine or LLM;
- to retrieve a neuronal net layout/training pipeline, then contact the
RWTH AI center.
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.