Danish RSE
Recently a group of research software engineers from the Danish universities came together and formed the new cross-university network; Danish RSE. The network comprises members from Copenhagen University, University of Southern Denmark, Aarhus University and Aalborg University. It spans over a wide range of competencies and profiles but all members share working with software engineering in some capacity to support and facilitate research incorporating digital data and data-intensive methods. Currently, the focus of the Danish RSE network is on Social Sciences and Humanities research. Mathieu Jacomy from TANT-Lab as well as Signe Birgit Sørensen and Kristian Gade Kjelmann from CALDISS have joined from AAU.
Goals of the Danish RSE
The goal is first and foremost to bring together the research software engineer (RSE) units from the Danish universities. In recent years the demand for technical "support staff" has increased with regards to handling large amount of digital data and implementing novel research methods for analyzing such data using digital methods and computational technologies. This has led to career profiles that stand at the intersection of IT support, software development and academic research. By bringing these profiles together the network aims to foster best practices for RSE units in terms of service, support, teaching and engineering by sharing knowledge and experiences. The network will also work on legitimizing and supporting RSE as a viable career path, fx by ensuring co-authorship and recognizing the works of RSE's as research outputs.