2026 Annual Conference - 20th April, Nottingham
On Monday 20th April 2026, the RSE Midlands community gathered at the Advanced Manufacturing Building on the Jubilee Campus of the University of Nottingham for its annual meeting, bringing together colleagues with an interest in research software from across the region.
This was the fifth year we were running the conference and the second time we were hosting it in Nottingham. This year’s event continued the growing tradition of the RSE Midlands event. Informal and welcoming, with attendees from multiple institutions working in various disciplines, the day provided a space to exchange ideas, reconnect with familiar faces, meet new colleagues, and strengthen the RSE community across the Midlands.
Below you will find the agenda for the day. Talks ranged from 15-minute presentations to longer 30-minute sessions, covering real-world projects, community building, training delivery, tools, and approaches to research software. Beyond the talks, the event offered opportunities for informal discussion during breaks, carving out time for attendees to continue conversations offline that were sparked during the talks.
Agenda
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 09:00 | 📋 Registration and refreshments |
| Session 1 (Chair: Kwabena Amponsah) | |
| 10:00 | Welcome remarks |
| Open-source, but paying the bills: PsychoPy’s story - Jonathan Peirce (University of Nottingham) | |
| 10:30 | RSE for data-driven AI research - Grazziela Figueredo (University of Nottingham) |
| 11:00 | ☕ Refreshments |
| Session 2 (Chair: Godwin Yeboah) | |
| 11:30 | EDI - Jeremy Cohen (Imperial College London), Ella Kaye (University of Birmingham) |
| 12:15 | Web Scraping Training - Louise Brown (University of Birmingham) |
| 12:30 | Digital Skills Training - Tom Giles (University of Nottingham) |
| 12:45 | Physics-Informed Machine Learning for Optical Surface Metrology: Bridging AI Research and Manufacturing - Ruidong Xue (University of Nottingham) |
| 13:00 | ☕ Lunch |
| Session 3 (Chair: Louise Brown) | |
| 14:00 | VisP2: The Data Visualization process for software development - Robert Laramee (University of Nottingham) |
| 14:30 | An introduction to Apptainer: Portable and Reproducible Workflows on HPC - Bradley Davy (OCF sponsored talk) |
| 15:00 | The reluctant developer’s guide to the software development universe - Mike Croucher (Mathworks) |
| 15:30 | ☕ Refreshments |
| Session 4 (Chair: Armando Mendez Villalon) | |
| 16:00 | RSE Society Sponsored talk - James Tyrrell (University of Birmingham) |
| 16:15 | Panel Session: Raising the visibility of RSE groups within Universities (details below) |
| 16:55 | Closing remarks |
Panel Session
Panel Coordinator: Louise Brown
Panel Chair: Armando Mendez Villalon
Panel Members:
- James Tyrrell, University of Birmingham
- Andrew Hadfield, University of Nottingham
- Mike Croucher, Mathworks
Registration
Thanks to generous funding from the Society of Research Software Engineering’s Events and Initiatives Grant, we were able to offer support to help cover travel expenses where these would be a barrier to attendance. Attendees were able to request support via the registration form or by getting in contact with us.
Venue and Travel
The venue for RSE Midlands 2026 was:
Advanced Manufacturing Building
Jubilee Campus, University of Nottingham
Derby Rd, Nottingham
NG7 2GX
The conference was held in room C11 on the top floor, and stairs and lifts were available.
Travelling by train
If you were travelling by train, we recommended travelling to nearest station, Nottingham Railway Station, and continuing to Jubilee Campus by tram or bus. Continuing by tram was the recommended route, which involved taking a tram towards Toton Lane, alighting at Queen’s Medical Centre tram stop, and walking 10 minutes to the venue. We provided alternative directions by bus, which involved taking a bus (or connecting buses) to Hillside bus stop (Stop LE12, Lenton) and walking a short distance to the venue.
Travelling by car
If you were travelling by car, there was visitor parking available on Jubilee Campus in designated areas. Visitors were encouraged to use the RingGo app. Pay-and-display machines were also available in some areas. EV charging points were available on Jubilee Campus for people who needed them. Alternatively, park and ride options were also available from several locations on the outskirts of Nottingham.
Organising Committee
Our organising committee for this year were Andrew Warry, Armando Mendez Villalon, Gavin Yearwood, Godwin Yeboah, James Tyrrell, Kwabena Amponsah and Louise Brown.
Sponsors
Our sponsors for this year were:
Contact
You can find us on our slack channel #midlands in the RSE Society’s slack workspace and on Mastodon!