The Tech Socials are back after our summer break, this time with a twist. For September’s social, we decided to follow up on a SeptembRSE event with our own discussion.

The topic was how to get started with technologies like high-performance computing and artificial intelligence. The panel members came from UCL’s Centre for Advanced Research Computing (ARC), research institutes in molecular biology and sociology, as well as industry. We wanted a range of perspectives, and we think we got it!

There’s lots to talk about on this topic and the discussion proved that, as we moved away from practical tips (such as keeping in mind the scale of your data and workloads) to consider the broader context. We covered policy issues, like the availability of seed funding, ideas for tackling the “skills gap” that researchers and students have to overcome, the importance of wrapping your head around what is possible to do with new technologies, all the way to the right attitude, and how technologists can more efficiently communicate with researchers in the social sciences and humanities (hint: some humility is advised).

If this sounds interesting, do watch the recording (unfortunately missing the first few minutes of introductions!). We are still exploring how ARC can best serve UCL, so get in touch if you think we can work together – you can find out more about what we do on the Research Programming Hub pages until the website reflects our change to ARC.

Thank you to all panel and audience members for their contributions!

The UCL Research Software Development Group, founded in 2012, was the first of its kind, and is one of the leading university-based research programming groups in the UK. We work across college developing high-quality software, collaborating with world-leading scientists, engineers and scholars from all research domains, within UCL and beyond. Whether this means using Python to build up a database of ancient Sumerian writings, parallelising Fortran codes for surface catalysis simulations, creating an online system to develop and evaluate models of heart cells, analysing live healthcare data within hospitals, or designing and building a big data image processing library in C++11 and Python, we do it all. Given the variety of areas in which we work, and the regular turnover of new projects, we welcome a wide range of backgrounds and technical skill sets. The most important attribute is an enthusiasm for reproducible, reliable and sustainable computational research!

In 2020 we created a new role within the group for a Research Web Application Developer and are now seeking to expand this sub-team due to ongoing growing demand – ever more projects are requiring research software to be deployed as interactive web applications. We are particularly seeking a front-end web developer able to produce both attractive and functional solutions, but a desire to engage deeply with the research community is key – we work with people, not requirements specifications.

You will join a growing team that is friendly and diverse, with around 30 members currently. All our positions are permanent, on open-ended contracts, and enjoy good opportunities for personal development and career progression within the group, in both technical and managerial tracks.

For more details and to apply check out the full advert. The closing date is 10th October 2021, with interviews taking place using Microsoft Teams from 27th October. The salary range is from £36,770 to £48,167 per annum depending on experience.