This report draws together some of the achievements of the Institute for Research Software since its foundation in 2010.
The document comprises 12 case studies that demonstrate the key role that the IfRS has played in improving research culture, revolutionising access to software training and working with our collaborators to develop policies that better recognise and support the vital role of software in research.
From 2021 to 2023, we conducted studies commissioned by different research councils ( to understand software use and needs within their communities. We have published or will soon publish reports for each one of these studies:
Our foundation-level training materials have been hugely popular among researchers and the need for advanced knowledge, which is required for collaborative research software development is beyond the scope of foundation teaching. To address this, we created open-source materials on collaborative research software development in 2021.
To date, this 5-day course on intermediate research software skills has trained 297 RSEs at 15 workshops.
The Research Software Engineering (RSE) International Survey is a survey conducted by the UK Software Sustainability Institute since 2016 and now comprises 8 countries. The survey covers all aspects of the practice of research software engineering, and the results aim to understand and improve the working conditions of RSEs around the world.
98% of outputs submitted in the most recent exercise (REF2021) were academic papers, which means that contributions from non-traditional staff go unrecognised.
To tackle this problem, we co-produced guidelines for assessing software submissions for REF2021 with input from the research software community and REF sub-panel 11. Together with other members of the research community, in 2020 we launched the Hidden REF, a grassroots community to campaign for recognition of a broader range of research outputs and the hidden roles that help to create them.
We ran a survey evaluation of the IfRS Fellowship Programme's effects on Fellows and their wider communities. A thematic analysis of the results shows that the award of a Fellowship had substantial and wide-ranging benefits both for the Fellows themselves and for their institutions and research domains.
The IfRS Event Organisation Guide (EOG) draws from years of experience of the IfRS in organising events. In this guide, you will find different stages of the event organisation process from idea through feasibility, sign-off, running your event project and closing down.
The work covers in-person workshop organisation, giving hints and tips on varied subjects such as venue, catering, budget, agenda, publicity and much more.
