This document is designed to outline best practice for working with RSEs at Warwick, so that researchers are aware of what is and is not guaranteed. Any specific agreements will always supersede these general principles.

‘A Research Software Engineer (RSE) combines professional software engineering expertise with an intimate understanding of research.’ – Society of Research Software Engineering

RSEs are specialists in producing high quality code for research. The blend of research background with software focus will confer a higher standard of code output to your project. The benefits of this include:

• Code that is easier to share and maintain.
• Code that is of a publishable quality increasing the number of research outputs.
• Reduced chance of a software bug invalidating results or delaying progress.
• Interdisciplinary experience resulting in knowledge transfer to you project.

Funding councils are beginning to expect some measure of RSE time or support to be included in grants where the project has a significant software component.

For a full list of activities and examples of previous RSE project involvement please see [LINK HERE]

There are multiple RSE groups at Warwick who work in different departments, review the RSE groups page on these pages to see what groups exist. If you are unsure, you can submit the general contact form and we can discuss your needs.

The cost of RSE time will vary depending on the work to be undertaken and according to availability and skillsets. RSEs will be costed at full FTE, with minimum granularity and contractable time according to group. In general, 1 day and 2 weeks (10 days) respectively. This cost will reflect the usual expectations of annual leave. Requirements of specific funders will be accommodated where practical.

RSEs are academic collaborators on your project and as with a research collaborator such as a postdoc an RSE will not spend 100% of the time contracted directly on the project. Additional uses of time will be, for example, continuing professional development, general administration, and setup of new projects. Remember that these activities will have ongoing benefits to your project, including prior to the actual contracted start date.

If you have existing grant funding, and believe that an RSE could make use of it to your benefit, please get in touch. We will make every effort to help you make use of this money, as long as there is somebody with availability and relevant skills. When possible, this is a simple process consisting of an initial agreement between researcher and RSE, and then checks that the grant can be spent this way, and verification of the FTE and duration of work to be undertaken.

RSE time can be written into grants at the RSE group level or at the individual RSE if they have a particular skillset that is required. If the RSE is this specific it is expected that if they have the choice of becoming a Co-Investigator on the grant.

Grant applications with a high RSE FTE and/or long duration:

Where a grant requires significant RSE time, it may be possible to hire for a new position to fulfil the need. However, this is subject to the usual hiring procedure and we make no guarantee that a suitable candidate can be found! Ideally, at least one existing RSE would also be involved in the project, reducing the reliance on one person, broadening the available skillset and increasing the interdisciplinary knowledge transfer.

Grant application with a low RSE FTE and/or short duration:

For low FTE, and/or short duration funding (generally less than one year FTE), hiring is not practical. We will take on work wherever possible within the time, skillsets and current directions of staff. We aim to maintain capacity in the pool to adapt to the situation as best as possible, but can make no guarantees.

The RSE teams have some capacity to take on Ad Hoc support free of charge. RSE teams are not obliged to take on your project but may do so if they have an interest in the technology or field. Preference will be given to projects where the support given will:

• Lead to more efficient use of Warwick computing infrastructure.
• Enable applications for grants that will include future RSE work.
• Ready code for high profile publications where the code is a research output and the RSE will be accredited for their contribution.
• Provide a foundation for commercialisation or investment that will involve future RSE involvement.
• The researcher's department has significant share in the RTP platform where the RSE is based.

RSEs are generally considered to be collaborators on your project. They bring a skillset and may inform or modify the direction of the software aspect of the project. They should be included on research outputs such as papers. We also strongly encourage code to be open source and citable as a separate research output. We recognise that some outputs have commercial or security caveats and will accommodate this where possible.

After the initial engagement term with the RSE the project will be handed to the researcher. At this point the RSE may no longer be available to support the project. Testing and validation will have been included in the initial workplan. If long-term support is required, then a low level funding should be negotiated to provide ad-hoc maintenance and updates. Code written for research projects by RSEs unless specifically otherwise stated comes with no guarantee or acceptance of liability.