2025 Annual Conference - 7th April, Birmingham
RSE Midlands 2025 took place on Monday 7th April 2025 at The Exchange, 3 Centenary Square, B1 2DR, and was hosted by the University of Birmingham’s Advanced Research Computing team.
Agenda
Below was the agenda for the day.
Registration and refreshments were available from 09:00 and were an optional opportunity to catch up with colleagues before the day begins in earnest. Thank you for aiming to arrive in good time for the introductory talks at 10:00 (to allow some time for us to address any questions you might have had about the day).
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 09:00 | Registration and refreshments |
| 10:00 | Introduction and welcome |
| 10:15 | Sponsor talk: SocRSE and RSECon25 (Pip Grylls, University of Warwick) |
| 10:30 | Group activity: “What can RSE Midlands do for you?” (Gavin Yearwood, University of Birmingham) |
| 11:00 | Refreshments (AM) |
| 11:30 | Sponsor talk: Intel Updates (Bogdan Stefan Pop, Intel) |
| Community talk: Baskerville case studies (Matthew Barton, University of Birmingham) | |
| 12:00 | Lightning talks |
| - Software as a research output (Boutheina Nedjai, University of Birmingham) | |
| - Research Software and Analytics at the University of Exeter (Jeremy Pike, University of Exeter) | |
| - Reproducible research software environments with Binder (Jenny Wong, 2i2c) | |
| - Julia programming language Special Interest Group (Vincenzo Brachetta, University of Birmingham) | |
| - EOSC-EVERSE: a framework for research software excellence (Jonathan Tedds, ELIXIR Hub) | |
| - Researcher development and training workshops (Steph Thompson, University of Birmingham) | |
| 13:00 | Lunch |
| 14:00 | Community talks (Software Sustainability Institute and Fellows) |
| - The SSI Fellowship Programme (Oscar Seip, SSI) | |
| - Building a Community of Digital Arts and Humanities RSEs in the Midlands: The SSI Fellowship (Godwin Yeboah, University of Warwick) | |
| - rainbowR: a community for LGBTQ+ folk who code in R (Ella Kaye, University of Warwick) | |
| - Exploring Communities: The SSI Fellowship and Beyond (Catherine Smith, University of Birmingham) | |
| 15:00 | Academic talk: Working with RSEs on the Compositor Project (Hazel Wilkinson, University of Birmingham) |
| 15:30 | Refreshments (PM) |
| 16:00 | Academic talk: DIATOMIC digital twin project for Birmingham (Grant Wilson, University of Birmingham) |
| Sponsor talk: The Research Software Group – the story so far (Andrew Edmondson, University of Birmingham) | |
| 16:30 | End |
Lightning Talks
Part of the day was set aside for lightning talks from the community, and we listened to people give quick talks.
Talks were generally:
- A maximum of ten minutes in length
- No more than five slides
We loved to hear about the practical tips, tricks, and tools you use in your everyday career, as well as the broader topics.
Submissions from members of underrepresented communities were strongly encouraged.
Venue and Travel
The Exchange website should contain all the information about our venue, including a virtual building tour. We booked the Assembly Room for RSE Midlands 2025 and made use of the Shared Catering Lounge during refreshment breaks.
Here is what the website says about travel (copied verbatim from the link above):
Travelling by car
Centenary Square cannot be accessed directly by car. Therefore, we recommend putting the postcode of your chosen car park into your satnav, rather than The Exchange’s postcode.
The Exchange lies within Birmingham’s Clean Air Zone. You can find out if you need to pay for your vehicle via the GOV.UK website, as well as pay the daily fee (if eligible) after or before your journey.
Parking
There is no on-site parking at the venue, however, you’ll find plenty of pay-and-display parking nearby. The nearest multi-storey car parks are Town Hall and Navigation Street, just a 5-minute walk away (0.3 miles). Street parking is also available at Bridge Street, just 5 minutes away.
The nearest car park to The Exchange with designated Blue Badge parking bays is Cambridge Street. From here, the venue is just 192 yards away. A good alternative is Paradise Circus multi-storey car park (243 yards away).
The venue is located within walking distance of several of central Birmingham’s major train stations:
Travelling by rail
The nearest train station to The Exchange is Birmingham New Street, a short 10-minute walk away. Snow Hill and Five Ways stations are 0.7 miles away, whilst Moor Street is 0.9 miles from the venue. All are within a 20-minute walk of The Exchange.
Organising Committee
Our organising committee for this year were James Tyrrell, Gavin Yearwood, Matthew Barton, and Adrian Garcia.
Sponsors
Our sponsors for this year were:
- Lenovo
- Intel
- The Society of Research Software Engineering
- Advanced Research Computing (University of Birmingham)
Contact
You can find us on our slack channel #midlands in the RSE Society’s slack workspace and on X!