4EU+ supports knowledge exchange between Research Data and Research Software Engineering groups One network, two groups, one mission
On February 10th and 11th, a delegation from Charles University in Prague (CUNI) visited Heidelberg University (Scientific Software Center (SSC) and Research Data Unit (RDU) ) for discussions and knowledge exchange around Open Science, Research Software Engineering (RSE) and enabling excellent research.
Both Heidelberg and CUNI are equipped with computing infrastructures, with Heidelberg leveraging long-standing data repositories (heiDATA) and an archiving service for research data (heiARCHIVE) alongside HPC capabilities, while CUNI is preparing to launch its own institutional repository and continues to develop its HPC and data-intensive computing environment. The Open Science teams from both institutitions discussed common topics and issues related to our computing and data management infrastructures. Discussions also covered institutional and national policies and important initiatives in the area of research data management, such as German NFDI and Czech implementation of EOSC initiative.
The Prague RSE team has been established in October last year and the visit to Heidelberg provided a very useful knowledge transfer from the experienced SSC team. The main points of interest were the organizational and project management strategies employed in both teams, discussions about the past and ongoing projects, strategies for promotion of RSE at both institutions and the content of the training courses offered at both institutions. The Prague team has learned about the German RSE community and the upcoming meetings organized in Germany. The visit was very useful in accelerating the roll-out of RSE support at CUNI, where the Prague team has already secured institutional support.
Both RSE teams identified strict legal regulations preventing sharing of sensitive data (e.g. between university hospitals and the university) as the limiting factor for accelerating and enabling a wide range of impactful research projects. Similarly, securing support for long-term maintenance of completed RSE projects would significantly reduce the costs associated with reingeneering of codes following a protracted period of inactivity.
The newly established collaboration is an excellent opportunity for strengthening and promoting RSE across the 4EU+ consortium. The teams are considering deepening the ties through staff exchange programmes, potentially involving another 4EU+ partner(s).
