UKCEH Research Software Engineers

Who we are

The RSE group at UKCEH was founded in 2024 by Professor Gordon Blair and Dr Faiza Samreen, who recruited six RSEs with diverse backgrounds in research and industry.

Each member of the group brings a unique blend of skills and interests, underpinned by both research and software engineering expertise.

As of the 2025 restructure, the RSE team forms part of the Digital Innovation group within the broader National Capability and Digital Research (NCDR) science area.


The RSE team in Lancaster, September 2025.

What we do

We work on a wide range of research projects across all five science areas.1 Typically our involvement with a project spans a significant fraction of the project’s lifecycle — i.e. months or years — and we are frequently involved in the planning and bid-writing stage of a project.

We also engage in various activities aligned to the four ‘pillars’ of research software engineering.2

Software Development
We work closely with our colleagues in the Digital Engineering and Digital Assets groups, contributing to the development and maintenance of UKCEH’s data and digital research infrastructure. Read more.

Community
We are active in the wider RSE community, contributing to events and special interest groups. We maintain a community discussion forum for research software at UKCEH. Read more.
Training
We develop open-source training materials, run workshops, and offer drop-in ‘code clinics’ for our colleagues. Read more.
Policy
We promote the ‘FAIR’ principles3 for research software. We advocate recognition of software as a research output and argue for proper resourcing for its maintenance. Read more.

Latest Updates

More updates…

Footnotes

  1. Since 2025, UKCEH has five science areas:

    • Biodiversity and Land Use
    • Environmental Pressures and Responses
    • Land-Atmosphere Interactions
    • National Capability & Digital Research
    • Water and Climate Science
    ↩︎

  2. The four ‘pillars’ of research software engineering:

    Figure 1: From J. Cohen, D. S. Katz, M. Barker, N. Chue Hong, R. Haines and C. Jay, “The Four Pillars of Research Software Engineering,” in IEEE Software, vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 97-105, Jan.-Feb. 2021, 10.1109/MS.2020.2973362.
    ↩︎

  3. FAIR stands for

    • Findable
    • Accessible
    • Interoperable
    • Reusable

    The FAIR principles for research software (FAIR4RS) develop this taxonomy.

    Chue Hong, N. P. et al. RDA FAIR4RS WG. (2022). FAIR Principles for Research Software (FAIR4RS Principles) (1.0). Zenodo. 10.15497/RDA00068↩︎

Reuse