2025 Annual Conference - 7th April, Birmingham

RSE Midlands 2025 will take place on Monday 7th April 2025 at The Exchange, 3 Centenary Square, B1 2DR, hosted by the University of Birmingham’s Advanced Research Computing team.

Registration

We’d love to see you at the event - registration is free. Book at https://pretix.eu/rsemidlands/2025/.

The registration process includes a series of questions designed to ensure that we are able to fully consider any potential barriers to your attendance (e.g. accessibility, dietary, financial, etc.). Of particular note, the Society of Research Software Engineering has generously offered financial support with any travel, childcare, or similar expenses. Please see our FAQ for further details.

Agenda

Below is the agenda for the day. Please note that this is provisional and may change closer to the event.

Registration and refreshments will be available from 09:00 and are an optional opportunity to catch up with colleagues before the day begins in earnest. Please aim to arrive in good time for the introductory talks at 10:00 (allowing some time for us to address any questions you might have about the day).

Time	Activity
09:00	Registration and refreshments
10:00	Introduction and welcome
10:15	Community talks (Society of Research Software Engineering)
10:30	Group activity - “What can RSE Midlands do for you?”
11:00	Refreshments (AM)
11:30	Academic talks
	- DIATOMIC digital twin project for Birmingham (Grant Wilson, University of Birmingham)
	- Baskerville case studies (Matthew Barton, University of Birmingham)
12:30	Lightning talks (Part 1)
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)
	- TBC (Catherine Smith, University of Birmingham)
15:00	Lightning talks (Part 2)
15:30	Refreshments (PM)
16:00	Sponsor talks
17:00	End

Lightning Talks

Part of the day has been set aside for lightning talks from the community, and we are very keen to hear from you! If you are interested in delivering a lightning talk, please provide a brief outline of your idea when asked during the registration process.

For guidance, talks should generally be:

A maximum of ten minutes in length
No more than five slides

We are particularly interested in hearing about any practical tips, tricks, and tools you use in your everyday career, but this is by no means exhaustive; if you would like to propose a broader topic, please do get in touch.

Submissions from members of underrepresented communities are strongly encouraged.

If you would like to discuss your ideas further before registering, please contact James Tyrrell.

Venue and Travel

The Exchange website should contain all the information you’ll need about our venue, including a virtual building tour. We have booked the Assembly Room for RSE Midlands 2025 and will also be making use of the Shared Catering Lounge during refreshment breaks.

Please pay particular attention to the following if you plan on travelling by car (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 are James Tyrrell, Gavin Yearwood, Matthew Barton, and Adrian Garcia.

Contact

You can find us on our slack channel #midlands in the RSE Society’s slack workspace and on twitter!