Third Helmholtz Software Award: And the Winners are…

For the third time, three development teams have been honoured with the Helmholtz Software Award.

The Helmholtz Association is home to numerous software projects that contribute significantly to excellent research results. The award aims to highlight the importance of research software for Helmholtz and recognise the outstanding achievements of Research Software Engineers (RSEs).

The award is presented in three categories – Best Scientific Software, Sustainability, and Newcomer – and is endowed with a total of EUR 10,000. The Best Scientific Software award honours innovative contributions and scientific results achieved with a software. The Sustainability Prize recognises software that is sustainable in terms of software engineering, in line with the FAIR principles, and that has received extensive support and participation from the scientific community. The Newcomer Prize shines a light on young software solutions with great potential and a visible growth rate in terms of application.

The Helmholtz Software Award is a joint initiative by HIFIS (Helmholtz Federated IT Services), HIDA (Helmholtz Information and Data Science Academy), the Helmholtz Open Science Office and the Joint Lab HiRSE (Helmholtz Information – Research Software Engineering). All software participating in the Helmholtz Software Awards is registered in the Helmholtz RSD.

This year's call saw a total of 39 submissions from 17 research centres, that met the eligibility criteria. Each submission was evaluated by two international expert reviewers using five criteria. Based on these evaluations, a panel consisting of representatives from the participating platforms selected the award winners.

And the winners are...

Best Scientific Software (Main award, EUR 5.000)

Chemotion – an Electronic Lab Notebook for chemistry and related sciences
Representative: Nicole Jung (KIT)

Sustainability Prize (EUR 3.000)

ASPECT – The Advanced Solver for Planetary Evolution, Convection, and Tectonics
Representatives: Rene Gassmöller (GEOMAR) and Anne Glerum (GFZ)

Newcomer Prize (EUR 2.000)

TrixiParticles – Particle-based multiphysics framework implemented in Julia
Representative: Sven Berger (HEREON)

Congratulations

The Helmholtz RSD team would like to congratulate all the developers on their exceptional research software solutions. The awards ceremony will take place on 4 November 2026, as part of the Helmholtz Codes! workshop at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR).