SSC Mission
Digitalization not only affects business and the public sector, it also transforms scientific research as a whole. It creates new opportunities for excellence and presents new challenges to researchers. The development of scientific software plays a key role in this transformation.
The Scientific Software Center (SSC) strives to improve scientific software development practices at Heidelberg University and beyond, to ensure reproducible science and software sustainability. The SSC also provides an umbrella for fostering synergies between domain experts and the traditionally digitally focused sciences (digital enablers), thus acting as a link between the different scientific disciplines and enabling collaboration and interdisciplinary research. The strategy of the SSC is based on the three pillars of Development, Teaching and Outreach. A more detailed description of the SSC and its services can be found in the SSC whitepaper.
One of the first dedicated Research Software Engineering departments in Germany
The SSC is one of Germany's first dedicated RSE departments. As such, we strive to improve research software, its recognition and career pathways for Research Software Engineers in Germany and beyond. Check out the maps to learn more about other RSE departments (global map) or RSEs (Germany map)!
The SSC supports researchers
The SSC supports researchers with dedicated software development. In the first five years, the projects were distributed quite evenly among Open Call, Small Scale, and funded projects.
Similarly, researchers of all domains were supported by these projects, with a slight focus on high-performance applications stemming mostly from the FOSS contributions. These contributions support the broader software infrastructure and can be re-used in different contexts.
