Research Software Engineering

Within the Data Science Institute, we aim to improve research's reproducibility and replicability by improving the reusability, sustainability and quality of research software developed across the University. We are currently funded by the N8CIR and work closely with our partner institutions

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What is Research Software Engineering?

Research Software Engineering combines academic research with good software engineering principles.

Combining good software engineering principles with high academic standards allows us to create the best quality open, reproducible, and replicable research. However, a lack of appreciation for software as a research output results in software being a secondary concern. This leads to lower quality code that is not reproducible, or even shareable.

Research Software Engineering and Research Software Engineers (RSEs) combine the skills needed, which allows them to work with researchers to develop software and research of the highest qualities.

Training Courses

We are no longer able to offer in-person training. Many of the resources we use can be used as self-teaching guides and links to them are provided below.

Introduction to Linux - An introductory course on using Linux and the command line.

Version Control with Git - Using version control to track (and undo) changes to your code with Git.

Plotting and Programming in Python - How to load in data, analyse, and plot it in Python.

R for Reproducible Scientific Analysis - How to load in data, analyse, and plot it in R.

Automation and Make - How to automate tasks using Make

Additionally the N8 CIR offers several courses and some online resources here: N8 CIR - Training and Events

Research Infrastructure

Various types of infrastructure are available to researchers at Lancaster to support them in computationally intensive research or to meet their data needs.

  • High End Computing Cluster

    The High-End Computing (HEC) Cluster is a centrally-run service to support researchers and research students at Lancaster who require high-performance and high-throughput computing. This includes computing workloads with requirements that can’t be met by the Interactive Unix Service (IUS), desktop PCs or Virtual Desktops (MyDesktop and MyLab).

  • Interactive UNIX Service (IUS)

    The Interactive UNIX Service (IUS) provides a UNIX facility in the areas of study, research, development, and teaching for researchers whose needs are not best served by the University's Microsoft Windows-based services.

  • Research filestores

    The research filestore is available for projects with specific requirements for large amounts of local, high speed storage.

  • SafePod

    A SafePod is a standardised safe setting that provides the necessary security for a researcher to access sensitive datasets from participating Data Centres across the UK. The SafePod at Lancaster University is part of the SafePod Network (SPN). A total of 25 SafePods will make up the SafePod Network, spread geographically across the UK. This network will remove the need for long distance travel to a dedicated safe setting provided by a data centre.

  • Bede

    Bede is the N8 GPU-accelerated Supercomputer. It is housed at Durham University and accessible by any members of the N8 - which includes Lancaster University.

Community

Many researchers use software heavily as part of their research, and many of the problems we need to solve with software can be common across disciplines. By bringing researchers together we can create a collaborative community to share tools and libraries that we use and provide support in writing code.

To do this we have a Microsoft Teams group where researchers can ask for help and advice, or post useful tools and information related to research software. Follow this link to join the Research Software Network Teams Group.

News

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Research Software Network - Michaelmas Newsletter

The Research Software Network (RSN) is organising a series of training courses, workshops, talks, code clinics and software writing retreats. This newsletter covers the various activities we are running and organising for the Lent Term (12 January 2024 – 22 March 2024)
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Research Software Network - Summer 2023

We are pleased to announce the Research Software Network, and Research Software Engineering activities for the Summer term, 2023.

On top of our usual courses, We are also able to offer a specialist workshop, "Speed up python with Numpy", and a 2-day Research Software Writing Retreat based at the Lancaster suite in the Castle. Please find a summary of the events below, including links to more information on each one.
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Research Software Training - Michaelmas term

The latest Research Software Engineering groups training courses for the Michaelmas term are now available for booking. This term's courses are:

Introduction to the Linux Command Line

Version Control with Git

Plotting and Programming in Python

Intermediate Git: Sharing and collaborating with GitHub
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RSN - Introduction to TensorFlow

On 23/02/22 Dr Chris Jewell, Senior Lecturer in Epidemiology and Lancaster's CIR (Computer Intensive Research) Lead on the N8 gave an excellent talk introducing us to computing with TensorFlow. The abstract to the talk and a link to the recording is available below.
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RSN - Research Infrastructure

On 9/03/22 Dr Matt Storey, Head of Storage and Virtualisation in ISS, gave an excellent talk on Research Infrastructure available to researchers at Lancaster. He covered a variety of computational and storage options available along with how to access them and case studies on their use. The abstract and the link to the recording of this is available below.

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