# Ambassador newsletter

## Jan 2026

CodeRefinery Ambassadors - Januar 2026: News and invitation

Dear CodeRefinery ambassadors,

We hope you are having a good start of the new year!

Below some news and discussion items from the CodeRefinery project. Please join the upcoming Ambassador meetup on 19.1 at 14 CEST to discuss and share your views and experiences!

CodeRefinery workshop - spring '26
-----------------------------------

The next CodeRefinery workshop is happening 17.-19. and 24.-26. of March 2026:
- same format as spring 2025 workshop: https://coderefinery.github.io/2025-03-25-workshop/,
- likely with some minor tweaks in time of day, length of day. Event page + registration coming this week!
- Lesson change: Jupyter will be replaced with a lesson on responsible use of AI for coding.
- You can bring your own classroom or support as instructor, contact [e-mail] if interested.

CodeRefinery phase 4 project plan
----------------------------------

Our project plan for phase 4 (2025-2028) is now published: https://github.com/coderefinery/reports-and-proposals/tree/main/phase-4-project-plan . Check out what the project is all about, beyond what you may already know :)
We have several working groups looking at different activities! Let me know, if you would like to join any.

CodeRefinery definition
------------------------

Last meeting we took a look at the CodeRefinery workshop and materials definitions for the case if someone asks (https://hackmd.io/@coderefinery/CR_def). Many of your comments have been implemented and made the document better, thank you so much! We are still working on "what this document is for", more on that later this year.

10 Years of CodeRefinery in 2026
---------------------------------

In 2026 we are celebrating 10 years of CodeRefinery! We do have some ideas on how to celebrate that with the community, but would also be keen on hearing from you: Anything you would like to know from or do with us? Anything we can provide for your and your colleagues? Something fun we can do together? Let us know in the meeting!

YOU on our website?
--------------------

Reminder: Would you like to be named as ambassador on our website? -> Send me your name and affiliation via e-mail or add yourself to this pull request: https://github.com/coderefinery/coderefinery.org/pull/951; this will later appear as a new section here: https://coderefinery.org/about/contributors/

Next ambassador meetups
------------------------

The next possibilities to meet the CodeRefinery team and other ambassadors are:
- 19.1 (Next week!)
- 30.3
- 1.6
All Monday at 14 CEST at https://cscfi.zoom.us/j/66165768646 (Calendar invites have been sent on Nov 27, contact [e-mail] if you did not get one), agenda and pre-info appearing in our meeting notes document week before the meeting: https://hackmd.io/@coderefinery/team-meeting

Thank you so much for your support! As usual, please do not hesitate to reach out to [e-mail] if you have any questions or ideas or want to share your views in case you cannot attend the meeting.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Kind regards,
Samantha

---

## Nov 2025

Hei CodeRefinery ambassadors,

A few quick news for you from the CodeRefinery project:

Info from the Autumn workshop available

You can now find all info and some statistics from our latest autumn workshop on our website repository: https://github.com/coderefinery/coderefinery.org/blob/main/content/workshops/full-workshops.yml

CodeRefinery spring workshop 2026

The next CodeRefinery workshop is happening 17.-19. and 24.-26. of March 2026:
- same format as spring 2025 workshop: https://coderefinery.github.io/2025-03-25-workshop/,
- likely with some minor tweaks in time of day, length of day
- Lesson change: Jupyter will be replaced with a lesson on responsible use of AI for coding.
- You can bring your own classroom or support as instructor, contact [e-mail] if interested.

YOU on our website?

We had promised it for a long time, and now can finally provide: Would you like to be named as ambassador on our website? -> Send me your name and affiliation via e-mail or add yourself to this pull request: https://github.com/coderefinery/coderefinery.org/pull/951

Next ambassador meetups

I just sent out calendar invites for our next ambassador meetups for 19.1, 30.3 and 1.6.2026.
Hope to see many of you there!

Wanna chat?

If you ever want to have a chat about CodeRefinery or other things, please do book a time with me ("continue as guest"): https://outlook.office.com/bookwithme/user/[e-mail]/meetingtype/5uaIWxphYEGTOzAUVHaZZg2?anonymous&ismsaljsauthenabled&ep=mlink . I'll be off work, to finalize my PhD in December, and on vacation until mid January, but feel free to book a slot already for next year :)

Snowy greetings from Finland,
Samantha

---

## Sep 2025

CodeRefinery Ambassadors - September 2025: News and invitation

Dear CodeRefinery ambassadors,

We hope you are having a good end of summer/start of autumn!

Below some news and discussion items from the CodeRefinery project. Please join the upcoming Ambassador meetup on 6.10 at 14 CEST to discuss and share your views and experiences!

CodeRefinery workshop - autumn '25
-----------------------------------

Still going strong with sessions on Jupyter, Testing and modular code development coming up next 3 Wednesdays. More info and registration: https://coderefinery.github.io/2025-09-09-workshop/

Thank you for your help with outreach! Almost 500 registrations so far! We will show some numbers per country in the meetup as well as which sessions people signed up for. We also ran a small survey to find out reasons why people did not attend (though signed up), which we will also share in the meetup.

CodeRefinery workshop - spring '25
----------------------------

Currently planning for Spring 2026 workshop: Any wishes or blockers for dates from your community? Any wishes for format: Short format like it was last year (6 half days) or longer format spread out like the currently running workshop (3 half days + 6 wednesday sessions)?

CodeRefinery curriculum and lesson development
-----------------------------------------

We teach what we hope is useful to you and your colleagues, but what are potential challenges that you/your colleagues are facing and are not taught anywhere? (e.g. responsible use of AI for coding)

We also try to adapt to our audience (based on feedback) by lowering the barrier to participation (tracks on following in GitHub webinterface, VSCode). Is that the way to go? Or are there more advanced topics missing that we should focus on?

Community elected steering group member
---------------------------------------

No one applied. We will do another call for this in the future, with more information about the mandate. Please let us know if you have any thoughts about this (notes: https://hackmd.io/@coderefinery/community-elected-sg)

Working groups/ Task forces open for collaboration
---------------------------------------------------

We are starting a bunch of task forces / working groups on below topics, any comments or ideas on what is missing/should be added wrt to the topics mentioned?
- Installation instructions updates (towards how researchers can/want to install software used in the workshop)
- CodeRefinery MOOC development
- CodeRefinery lesson metadata collection and provision
- AI related hints throughout the core lessons
- Lesson on AI from user perspective (responsible use of AI in research)
- Additional R examples to core lessons
- Train the trainer
- RSE training ecosystem overview for learners
- Outreach and community events
- Adding "data steward" (someone not necessarily a user of the tools, but a supporter of researchers who use the tools) as learner persona for the CodeRefinery workshop

Next ambassador meetups
------------------------

The next possibilities to meet the CodeRefinery team and other ambassadors are:
- Oct 6
- Nov 17
All Monday at 14 CEST at https://cscfi.zoom.us/j/66165768646 (Calendar invites have been sent on Jul 11, contact [e-mail] if you did not get one), agenda and pre-info appearing in our meeting notes document week before the meeting: https://hackmd.io/@coderefinery/team-meeting

Thank you so much for your support! As usual, please do not hesitate to reach out to [e-mail] if you have any questions or ideas or want to share your views in case you cannot attend the meeting.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

Kind regards,
Samantha

---

CodeRefinery Ambassadors - July 2025: News and invitations

Dear CodeRefinery ambassadors,

We hope you are having a good summer :)
Below some news and invitations from the CodeRefinery project (some are duplicate of the general newsletter, but have more detail). Please join any of the ambassador meetups or send an e-mail if you have any questions or want to discuss something in more detail.

Next CodeRefinery workshop
--------------------------

Our next CodeRefinery tools workshop (online) will take place Sep 9-11 at 11-15.30 CEST and Sep 17, 24, Oct 1 ,8 ,15 ,22 2025, 12 – 14.30 CEST : https://coderefinery.github.io/2025-09-09-workshop/

Slightly new format, starting later in the day to accomodate our friends in Iceland and giving more time to "week 2" topics to bring back exercises (yay!) and support "choose your own adventure".

Registration will open soon!

Some locations offer local classrooms to meetup and learn together for part or the whole workshop. You can find them on our event page: https://coderefinery.github.io/2025-09-09-workshop/#local-exercise-groups

Contact us if you want to host your own local classroom or are interested in teaching with us by sending an e-mail to [e-mail] as soon as possible :)

If you would like to help us advertize the workshop, please find some announcement texts to copy on our events communication page: https://coderefinery.github.io/2025-09-09-workshop/communication/

We also prepared a workshop poster (which you also may adapt to your needs): https://github.com/coderefinery/posters/tree/main/2025_autumn_workshop

OpenHouse
----------

Spring is now summer and will probably become autumn or even winter. A lot has been going on, so the OpenHouse sessions are currently on break but we would love to reactivate them. We will inform separately, if/when we do :)
Let us know if you want to help out!

Community elected steering group member
----------------------------------------

A reminder that we are looking for volunteers to join our steering group representing the community. More info: https://hackmd.io/@coderefinery/community-elected-sg

Non-Nordic CodeRefinery partner organizations
---------------------------------------------

Any organization (also outside Nordics!) can become an observer within the project. This can happen whenever during project duration, and is done by sending a short letter of interest to [e-mail] . The letter should include your interest for in-kind contribution to the project. It does not need to specify the amount of person months, but should include a description of the work that you intend to do with us. Detailed benefits etc to be worked out together with you and the CodeRefinery steering group.

If anyone is interested in this kind of arrangement or would like to hear more, please contact [e-mail] .

We can still collaborate as before, also without official affiliation, but for some individuals the collaboration could be made easier if the organization has an official affiliation with CodeRefinery.

CodeRefinery out in the world
------------------------------

**STARS Forum**

We are now part of the Forum for Skills and Training for Research Software by the Research Software Alliance: https://www.researchsoft.org/stars-forum/

Looking forward to getting to know and collaborating with all the awesome RSE training initiatives out there!

**Conference presentations about the project**

We have been busy presenting the project in different forums during beginning of 2025, such as Nordic-RSE conference, PASC25, HiRSE seminar, etc. You can find most presentation slides and abstracts in our Zenodo community: https://zenodo.org/communities/coderefinery

Next ambassador meetups
------------------------

The next possibilities to meet the CodeRefinery team and other ambassadors are:
- Aug 25
- Oct 6
- Nov 17
All Monday at 14 CEST at https://cscfi.zoom.us/j/66165768646 (Calendar invites have been sent on Jul 11, contact [e-mail] if you did not get one), agenda and pre-info appearing in our meeting notes document week before the meeting: https://hackmd.io/@coderefinery/team-meeting

Thank you so much for your support! As usual, please do not hesitate to reach out to [e-mail] if you have any questions or ideas.

---

CodeRefinery Ambassadors - March 2025: News and invitations

Thank you for your feedback about the meetings and communication. We will collect and share information now before each ambassador meeting and leave the meetings for very short announcement and longer discussions. Since there are not much news at this moment, some parts are copied from the general Newsletter.

Next ambassador meeting will be on March 10th, 14 CET (you got a calendar invite for that on Feb 27th). Connection details can also be found in our notes: https://hackmd.io/@coderefinery/team-meeting

CodeRefinery 4.0 accepted :tada:
---------------------------------

Our proposal for phase 4 of the project (2025 - 2028) got approved. We will continue to offer online workshops in the now familiar format
(streamed lectures, exercises, bring-your-own-classroom model, co-teaching).

We will also experiment with asynchronous learning and self-paced learning
modules.

Our travel budget is increased compared to previous phases, and we are looking
forward to being able to present the project at more conferences and events and
to engage with more communities and start new collaborations.

We are also in the process of establishing a long-term support for the GitLab
service which we operate since many years.

Next CodeRefinery workshop
--------------------------

Our next CodeRefinery tools workshop (online) will take place March 25-27 and
April 1-3, 2025: https://coderefinery.github.io/2025-03-25-workshop/

You can still offer an in-person classroom. To do that, and get onboarding, please register to the workshop and choose "organizer of a local group".

You can also help us advertise by reusing these texts (https://coderefinery.github.io/2025-03-25-workshop/communication/) or with a workshop poster: https://github.com/coderefinery/posters/tree/main/2025_spring_workshop

Open House
-----------

We will have a few smaller Open House events planned for March, to work on lesson updates. We will meet online Wed March 5th 10-12 CET and Mon March 17 10-12 CET (you can join either one, also only part of the time).
You are very welcome to join the sessions and support the lesson updates (there are all kinds of things to do that you also do not need to be an expert in the topic for).
Connection details and info (WIP): https://hackmd.io/@coderefinery/OH_lessonwork
We'll continue with the git masterclass later in Spring.

Nordic-RSE conference
---------------------

The Nordic-RSE (research software engineers) conference will take place May 20-21, 2025 in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Many CodeRefinery community members will be present there. The registration and call for contributions are open:
- https://nordic-rse.org/nrse2025/

Read about who this event is for and who you might meet there in this blogpost: https://nordic-rse.org/blog/conf-info-event/

---

## Feb 2025 : News and invitations

Hei,

Thank you to everyone who joined our ambassador meetings so far! I hope you got something out of it. While writing this e-mail I noticed that most of the previous meeting could actually have been an e-mail, so here a short survey on your preferences for information sharing (only 2 short questions): https://www.menti.com/albdgao9fxi7
We will in any case continue the approximately monthly meetings, but may restructure them a bit based on your answers.

Here now a summary of the latest news in written format:

## Past

- [Git masterclass open house report pt 1]( https://coderefinery.org/blog/open-house-git-masterclass/), pt 2 coming soon.
- Interested in follow up event? Send an e-mail to [e-mail]
- CodeRefinery 4.0 proposal submitted
- Proposal: https://github.com/coderefinery/reports-and-proposals/tree/main/phase-4-proposal
- Continue: Large online workshops, Train the trainer, lesson development, outreach
- New: interest in research data management and AI connections, self-learning MOOC, CodeRefinery workshop at conference
- Potential to join for non-Nordics organizations at any time, see our info for new organizations: https://github.com/coderefinery/reports-and-proposals/blob/main/phase-4-proposal/info_for_new_organizations.md ; contact [e-mail] if interested or wanna hear more
- Some +- new derivative lesson material sets by Radovan:
- Reproducible Python for Machine Learning: https://coderefinery.github.io/reproducible-python-ml/
- Data visualization with Python: https://coderefinery.github.io/data-visualization-python/
- "CodeRefinery in an hour": https://coderefinery.github.io/research-software-engineering/

### Upcoming
- Spring workshop registration is open: https://coderefinery.github.io/2025-03-25-workshop/: March 25-27 and April 1-3, 2025
- Role distributions in progress: co-instructor, notes helper, team lead, local host, communications support, let us know if you wanna help in any capacity by filling in this little survey: https://link.webropolsurveys.com/S/CFA986F053D2E3FF (please forward to anyone who might be interested in helping, or bringing their own classroom)
- Co-instructor info event: Feb 19 + 24, 9-11 CET (both identical)
- more info: https://hackmd.io/@coderefinery/instructor_info25 (no registration needed, just show up)
- Note: this is not only for people interested in teaching with us but can also be helpful for people generally teaching online
- Nordic-RSE Conference: https://nordic-rse.org/nrse2025/, May 20+21 in Gothenburg, Sweden
- Preliminary autumn workshop dates: September 16.-18. and 23.-25. 2025

## Other

- A wish from the last ambassador meeting: CR workshop poster to print (one general for the workshop and one adaptable if local room is available)
- Now available here (svg can be edited with e.g. InkScape, general spring workshop poster available as png with CET/EET/BST time (note the name and choose the right one for your timezone), and templates without date and QR code as svg and pdf : https://github.com/coderefinery/posters
- Reminder that we also have some slides that can be shared or integrated in your own presentations: https://github.com/coderefinery/presentations/blob/main/README.md
- In addition to this ambassador e-mail list, CodeRefinery has a general newsletter and chat digest E-Mails (https://coderefinery.org/about/newsletter/).
- We also have our own chat https://coderefinery.zulipchat.com where we discuss collaborations and other topics of interest to the community. The Nordic Research Software Engineering association also hangs out in that chat.
- We also use the following external channels to update on things going on in the project:
- 🐘 Mastodon: fosstodon.org/@coderefinery
- 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coderefinery-research-software-development/
- 🦋 And now new: We are also on Bluesky! -> https://bsky.app/profile/coderefinery.org

In case of any questions regarding the project or the workshops, please do not hesitate to send an e-mail to [e-mail] or use our Zulip chat (https://coderefinery.zulipchat.com).

Looking forward to hearing about your opinions about the communication channel in the little survey (same link as above): https://www.menti.com/albdgao9fxi7

Kind regards,
Samantha
CodeRefinery community manager

## Slideset, upcoming workshop, goodies

Hei,

the preparations for our upcoming workshop are going strong and we are looking forward to it!

Please share the info with your network. And thank you if you have done so already <3

You can find some texts that you can adjust to your needs on our workshop homepage: https://coderefinery.github.io/2024-09-10-workshop/communication/

We will do some more posts on social media soon, which can also be reshared:

- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coderefinery-research-software-development/?viewAsMember=true
- X:https://twitter.com/coderefine
- Mastodon: https://fosstodon.org/@coderefinery

CodeRefinery slideset

In addition we have been asked to provide a short slide set about CodeRefinery which can be added to other presentations.
You can now find these slides as markdown (+css) and Libre Office Impress (odp) format in our presentation repository (2024-CodeRefinery-basic.xx): https://github.com/coderefinery/presentations/tree/main (rendered: https://cicero.xyz/v3/remark/0.14.0/github.com/coderefinery/presentations/main/2024-CodeRefinery-basic.md/). They are also linked from our webpage: https://coderefinery.org/about/goodies/ . Please let us know if those are useful or more information should be added. We will also be turning these into a poster soon.

Goodies

We currently have stickers, sew-on patches and iron-on sheets (to make your own CodeRefinery T-shirt) with the CodeRefinery logo: https://coderefinery.org/about/goodies .
If you want some, please send us an email with what and how many you would like and your (work) address.

Website

After the upcoming workshop we will adapt the CodeRefinery website to create a space for ambassadors, if you want to be added there, please send us your name, affiliation/location and e-mail address. This will then be a place for interested parties to find a CodeRefinery affiliate in their organization/location.

Thank you for being an ambassador and hope to see you around :)

Kind regards,
Radovan and Samantha on behalf of CodeRefinery

---

## Outreach to potential ambassadors

Hei,

we are reaching out to you because FILL IN HERE.

We have recently started the CodeRefinery ambassador program and would like you to become part of it!

What is it?

We rely heavily on local organizers for our workshops and people telling their colleagues about CodeRefinery. And we know many are already supporting the CodeRefinery project that way. We would like to thank you for it, find ways to support you better and keep you in the loop about what is happening.
Currently the ambassador program consists of a mailing list and a chat channel, but we also plan to have more get-togethers in the future. None of which you'd have an obligation to attend.

What can you get from it?

We will provide materials for you to include in your talks, posters and trainings at events (you may anyway be attending). You can also get CodeRefinery goodies to distribute at events.

We can also support you to start your own local community of CodeRefinery enthusiasts or other activities.

What we can offer:

- A chance to influence the future of the project
- Visibility in social media and on our webpage
- Weekly community news
- Support for organizing local events or other activities

Next steps?

If this sounds interesting to you, please sign up to our ambassador mailing list (https://postit.csc.fi/sympa/subscribe/coderefinery-ambassadors/) and/or join the CodeRefinery Zulip chat (https://coderefinery.org/join/chat/).
This will be the main channels of contact. We also plan to organize an ambassador meetup on 12.8.

If you have any questions, suggestions or ideas that you would like to share with us, you may answer to this email or contact us at [e-mail]

Ambassador or not, thank you for being awesome!

Kind regards,
XXX on behalf of the CodeRefinery team

---

Current ambassador mailing list subscribers: 11 (5.8) , 9 (24.7)

---

:::spoiler People to reach out to

- previous instructors (all same)
- previous helpers (all same) :heavy_check_mark: 6.8
- known hosts of in person rooms (all same) -> drafted together with BYOC outreach, to be sent by RB :heavy_check_mark:
- supporters at CSC (Päivi Rausta, Pinja Immonen, Josefine Nordling, Heidi Reiman, Heli Juottonen, Anni, ...) -> sent :heavy_check_mark:
- supporters in other places (personal)
-- Paula, Halford, Carlos -> sent :heavy_check_mark:
-- Simon (Ireland) -> sent :heavy_check_mark:
-- Weronika (EPCC) -> sent :heavy_check_mark:
-- Jan (Hannover) -> sent :heavy_check_mark:
-- Frank L (DE) -> sent :heavy_check_mark:
-- Luca & Matteo -> sent :heavy_check_mark:
-- Gudrun Lotze

- LinkedIn reposters/likers (active)
-- Niket Agrawal
-- Marion Weinzierl
-- Laura Bellentani
-- Korbinian B.
-- Priyanka O.
-- Vilma Häkkinen
- X reposters/likers (active)
-- Katharina Kujala
-- Pradeep Eranti
-- Dr. Ingrid Heggland
-- Abbas K. Rizi
-- Susan Branchett
- Mastodon reposters/likers (active)
-- Esther Plomp
-- Dr. Rachel Kurchin
-- Benedikt Ehinger
-- Jobin John

> Seems like it is not possible to contact them in direct message on social media platforms :(
Leaving the list here for later, but not directly contacting for now.

:::

---

## Ambassador mailing list

:::danger

Sent out on 8.8 to 18 (+2) ambassadors

:::

Hei,

---
TL;DR

Thank you for joining the CodeRefinery ambassadors!
Lots of events coming up: https://coderefinery.org/#news
Ambassador community call: 12.8, 14 CEST at https://uit.zoom.us/j/62141400945

---

Thank you for being a CodeRefinery ambassador; we highly appreciate your support!

We started the ambassador program in June 2024 in an effort to build a network with people like you! We hope that this can be the beginning of a fruitful exchange going both ways and support you in growing your professional network around Research Software Engineering and Open Science.

What we hope you can get out of it:
- Network, connections
- Collaborations
- Support, stickers, materials
- Direct connection

What we hope to get out of it:
- Outreach, visibility
- Feedback, improvement ideas, and suggestions
- Collaborations

Note that to be an ambassador, you do not have to be active as a CodeRefinery instructor/helper or community member.

We'll have a bunch of events coming up after the summer break; all free of charge and online:

- CodeRefinery train the trainer, 4 modular sessions every Tuesday morning between August 13. and September 3. Join any of the sessions that interest you; no need to be or aspire to be a CodeRefinery instructor! More info and registration: https://coderefinery.github.io/train-the-trainer/

- CodeRefinery online workshop on tools and techniques for "good enough" FAIR Research Software Engineering practices for researchers, 6 half days between September 10. - 19. More info and registration: https://coderefinery.github.io/2024-09-10-workshop/

- Same workshop but in person is also offered August 27.-29. in Gothenburg: https://coderefinery.github.io/2024-08-27-gothenburg/

- Build systems course and hackathon organized by PDC with CodeRefinery partners in October. 4 course days plus local hackathon and support sessions in Sweden/Finland. More info and registration: https://www.pdc.kth.se/about/events/build-systems-course-and-hackathon-part-i-1.1346795, , Hackathon (SE): https://www.pdc.kth.se/about/events/build-systems-course-and-hackathon-part-ii-1.1346798 , Hackathon/Support session (FI): https://ssl.eventilla.com/build-systems

- On Monday 12.8 at 14 CEST we will provide all ambassadors with an opportunity to meet each other and with the CodeRefinery team; connection details and agenda: https://hackmd.io/@coderefinery/team-meeting

In the meantime, if you want to get in touch, you can join the CodeRefinery chat (https://coderefinery.zulipchat.com/) and find the ambassador topic in the coderefinery channel (https://coderefinery.zulipchat.com/#narrow/stream/215460-coderefinery/topic/CodeRefinery.20ambassador.20program) or send an email to [e-mail] (better than personal emails, to make sure you get an answer even if someone is on vacation or sick).

We are looking forward to working with you! Please do not hesitate to contact us.

Kind regards,
Samantha & Radovan on behalf of CodeRefinery