Joint Lab Helmholtz Information - Research Software Engineering
Scientific software is becoming increasingly important for the success of research and to generate new knowledge. However, the importance of codes for science has not yet been recognized at the national level. Also, the evaluation measures for research are not set in a way that would support sustainable work on scientific software. The situation is further complicated as the methods of conventional software engineering addressing an industrial context cannot be transferred one to one to scientific software. Therefore, Research Software Engineering (RSE) is forming as a new subject of investigation, in Europe, Germany and the Helmholtz Association.
In this context, the HiRSE concept (“Helmholtz Platform for Research Software Engineering”) sees the establishment of central activities in RSE and the targeted sustainable funding of strategically important codes by so-called Community Software Infrastructure (CSI) groups as mutually supportive aspects of a single entity.
In a first “preparatory study”, HiRSE_PS evaluated the core elements of the HiRSE concept and their interactions in practice over the funding period of three years. One work package dealt with the operation of CSI groups, in particular also for young codes, and a second one with consulting and networking. The goal of the preparatory study was the further refinement of the concept, which can then be rolled out to the entire Helmholtz Information, or, if desired, to the entire Helmholtz Association with high prospects of success and high efficiency. As of October 2024, HiRSE is now the (flexible) Joint Lab “Helmholtz Information - Research Software Engineering”, with an extended funded period until the end of 2027.
This project is funded by the Innovation Fund of Helmholtz Information of the Helmholtz Association as well as by the four participating partners.
4C is a parallel multiphysics research code for simulating solid/fluid mechanics, scalar transport, and chemical reactions. It supports both single-field and coupled systems, offering ready-to-use solutions for a wide range of physical problems.
Elephant (Electrophysiology Analysis Toolkit) is an open-source, community centered library for the analysis of electrophysiological data in the Python programming language.
FLEUR is a feature-full, freely available FLAPW (full-potential linearized augmented-plane-wave) code, based on density-functional theory. This highly precise all-electron approach is universally applicable to all atoms of the periodic table and to systems with compact as well as open structures.
Heat is a flexible and seamless open-source software for high performance data analytics and machine learning. It provides highly optimized algorithms and data structures for tensor computations using CPUs, GPUs and distributed cluster systems on top of MPI.
NEST is a simulator for spiking neuronal networks. A well tested and efficient tool, NEST works on your laptop and also on the world’s largest supercomputers to study behaviour of large networks of neurons.
perun is a Python package that calculates the energy consumption of Python scripts by sampling usage statistics from hardware interfaces. It can handle MPI applications, gather data from hundreds of nodes, and accumulate it efficiently.
pySDC is a Python implementation of the spectral deferred correction approach and its flavors, esp. the parallel-in-time extension PFASST. It is intended for rapid prototyping and educational purposes. New ideas can be tested and first toy problems can be easily implemented.