This time of the year, for the last decade, Iâve been celebrating being a Research Software Engineer (RSE) with more and more people every year. Society of Research Software Engineeringâs RSECon turns 10 this year and Iâve participated in most of them. Making a lot of friends on the way.
This year the celebration it is (was for me!) going to be even larger as Research Software Allieanceâs International Research Software Conference is co-located and happening just before RSECon. Two conferences celebrating Research Software in one week. It sounds like a dream.
And for me, it will be still a dreamâŚ
Both conferences are happening at the University of Sheffield, a place I keep in my heart as it was were I taught my first SunPy and Astropy workshop and where many of the Sunpy early developers were based. However, the management at Sheffield has been playing dirty games. After staff went on 16 days of strike last year, and therefore classes were missed. The management of the university decided âdouble deductingâ to those who refused to deliver these missed classes, for which they havenât already been paid.
In the light of these circumstances, University and College Union (UCU) has called their members to boycott any activity involved with the university, such as participating on conferences being held there.
In short, Iâm not celebrating in #Sheffield this week.
Itâs hard because I know Sheffield wont even notice that I wonât be there. And I know that RSECon and IRSC have both evaluated the financial impact for our communities withdrawing and therefore loosing a large deposit. But, though I understand that our financial impact to the university is small for them but large to us, I also believe our personal and academic community impact is more important. This is why I withdrew the sessions I was taken part on. By writing here I wish my words reach to other RSEs and maybe Sheffieldâs future students and staff, so they know what type of values are followed by their management.
To all staff affected: â Solidarity!
