Dear colleagues,
The Software Sustainability Institute, alongside our international partners, have launched the 2026 International RSE Survey to help better understand what research software engineers need and how we can advocate for the community.
We are particularly interested in the perspectives of those working in the digital arts, humanities and social sciences, even if you don’t identify as a research software engineer. Your formal job title does not matter - if you write code for research as part of your work, we want to hear from you.
The RSE Survey produces an incredibly valuable trove of data that anyone can use to understand the RSE community, including national associations, funders and policymakers. Please help us provide this data and support the RSE community by completing the survey.
The survey collects a considerable amount of detail about your role, the type of work you conduct, your working practices, job satisfaction and demographics. This means it takes around 20 minutes to complete - we appreciate that this is a significant amount of your time to donate and we thank you for it!
The survey closes on 20 March 2026.
The survey is being conducted with ethics approval from the University of Southampton (Ethics application number: ERGO/FEPS/108663) and for participants in South Africa by the University of Cape Town Inter-Faculty Human Research Ethics Committee (IFHREC) - IFHREC/02301/2025. The first page of the survey tells you everything about the conduct of the survey, our approach to privacy and data protection, and your rights as a participant in the survey.
Cheers,
Michael