The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) have opened their Research Software Engineers (RSE) fellowships call. This has an EPSRC deadline of Tuesday 18 August for an outline.

Fellows are supported up to 5 years, £4.5 million is available to support 4-8 EPSRC fellows and £0.6 million for an STFC fellow. Applicants can spend between 50-100% (FTE) on their fellowship. Further information including the call document.

The Society of RSE recently held a webinar which is now available on the Society YouTube channel and linked from their webinar webpage.

Internal Process

Applications are limited to two per organisation. As a result the University of Bath will be running an internal selection process in mid-late July.

To be considered please provide the following documents by Friday 17 July at 4pm to Dr Chloe Turner: resdev@bath.ac.uk:

• two-page Case for Support (minimum font size 11)
• CV
• a statement from your current, or potential future line manager, or from the Head of Department where your fellowship will be hosted (an email is fine)

For structuring your internal Case for Support you may wish to consider the assessment criteria published by EPSRC (see below); ‘Vision’ and ‘Leadership and Advocacy’ will be the primary criteria used in the University of Bath internal selection.

Vision

Comment on the evidence that the applicant:

• has provided a clear and compelling vision for their Fellowship to make a significant contribution to the development, sharing and exploitation of high-quality, sustainable research software and methodologies; and
  
• will make a significant contribution to developing institutional and/or disciplinary culture to ensure that research software enables and/or accelerates high quality research

Leadership and Advocacy

Comment on evidence of the applicant’s:

• aptitude and potential to lead, inspire and influence, for example, through mentoring, outreach activities and networking;
• plans to act as an ambassador and advocate for the RSE profession and the importance of research software; and
• plans for developing and sustaining effective partnerships and collaborations to enhance the impact, usage and sustainability of research software

Additionally you may want to consider the third assessment criterion used by EPSRC. In particular this may help in the statement of support from your line manager or Head of Department. As evidence contributing to this EPSRC assessment criteria may not be available before the internal application deadline of 17 July, it will be of secondary importance to the ‘Vision’ and ‘Leadership and Advocacy’ criteria in internal selection.

Host Organisation Support

Comment on the degree to which:

• the Host Organisation has demonstrated commitment to the applicant and the activities proposed in the Fellowship (both during the Fellowship award and following the ending of the award);
  
• the Host Organisation plans to support the career development of the applicant (both during the Fellowship award and following the ending of the award);
• the Host Organisation provides a high-quality environment for the development, sharing and exploitation of high-quality, sustainable research software and methodologies; and
• the Host Organisation has tailored their support for the individual needs of the applicant and the activities proposed in the Fellowship

If you have further queries about this process, please contact Dr Chloe Turner. You may also like to contact James Grant who is particularly involved in the wider RSE community.