# Nordics in the International RSE survey 2025

:::info

Meeting: Mon 1.9 15 CEST at https://cscfi.zoom.us/my/samwi (attending: GD,MT,RZ,SW)
Meeting: Fri 26.9 10 CEST at https://cscfi.zoom.us/my/samwi (attending: RB,MT,RZ,SW)
Meeting: Fri 3.10 10 CET at https://cscfi.zoom.us/my/samwi

Please read through core questions before meeting :)
:::

## Timeline

- Until September 29: DL for suggestions for changes by all groups
- October 13: Final questions done
- January 7: Survey public
- February 27: Survey close
- April 13: Committee gets results

Platform: Lime survey

## Status

- One Nordic meeting was held, questions and suggestions were collected in meeting and asynch
- SW forwarded questions and concerns to committee asynch, main organizers will discuss adaptation of core questions on 25.9
- Committee will discuss final core questions end of Sep
- Nordics specific questions should be done between Sep 25 - Oct 13

Ask from organizers: Limit free text questions
New version end of this week.

## Contributors

SW, MT, RZ, GD, RB

## Links

~~Current survey questions to click through: Only choose country, then you should be able to click through without choosing answers:~~ ~~https://softwaresaved.limequery.com/368175?lang=en~~
**Updated survey (please do not add comments in this sheet, but rather add them in chat or below):** https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1FCqLWv_6f06ErslzSkOw5rq1Ii1kTlLuJ2x-Bydy3iQ/edit?usp=sharing (Note column E!)

- Question: should the "personalized" part of the form be related to country or to RSE association? Or both?

## Notes 3.10
Attending: MT, RZ, SW

- Importance of e-mail text
- make sure they know that its ok to not answer, or answer don't know
- e-mail text is up to us; there will be a template
- describe what RSE is
- Mention early on what RSE means, ie in opening text of the survey -> SW to take to committee
- Discussion of Nordic-only questions (see below)
- TO DO for all: Check below questions, merge where possible and suggest polished formulation

## Collection for Nordics only questions
> What do we definitely want to know about our people? (We can check overlap with final core questions later (after Thu, 2.10), so rather write it in and we have it twice than not)

- [x] 1. With Nordic-RSE we have an association dedicated to the community of Research Software Engineers in the Nordics. What tasks do you think should be undertaken by Nordic-RSE or a future Nordic institute for research software?
* In-house development of research software
* Temporary support of research software projects with manpower
* Maintenance of internationally relevant research software
* Consulting on research software development
* Development and dissemination of standards (e.g., for quality, metadata)
* Research on RSE topics
* Community engagement and trainings
* Advocating for research software towards politicians and decision makers
* Promotion of career paths in the RSE field
* Offer funding for research software projects
* Other: __________

- [x] 2. How should a future Nordic institute for research software foster community engagement and knowledge transfer?
* Organisation of conferences, workshops and similar events
* Running regular online talk-series
* Organisation of online and/or in-person trainings
* Hosting an easily searchable database of trainings available through other institutions
* Compilation and development of freely available training materials (for teaching and self-studying)
* Coordination of train-the-trainer programs (e.g. Carpentries) for Germany
* Fostering networking within the RSE community via a moderated matrix space (or similar)
* Other suggestions: __________

- [x] 3. Do you feel like you have a network of peers that extends beyond your close colleagues? (By "peers", I mean other people in a similar position to yours; please do not count networks that you may have built before, e.g. during a PhD)
- Yes, it came naturally with the job
- Yes, but I had to build it from scratch
- No, but mostly because I don't think I need it
- No, because I don't have the time

- [x] 4. Are you granted time for personal skills acquisition? (e.g. skills that are not yet needed in a project, for example learning a new technique)
- Yes, I always have some time to dedicate to my own skills
- Yes, but only in weeks with a low workload
- Yes on paper, but my workload makes it impossible to use it
- Yes, as long as there is a high chance I will use it as part of my work
- No

- [x] Are you participating in any labor union? (they can negotiate salary etc; are labor unions aware of RSE roles?)
- SSI Comment: This kind of raw data cannot be shared beyond UK borders, only analyzed

- [x] If not part of core questions: Have you published a software paper (JOSS, Software-x or similar)? Is your employer supporting this?

- [x] Salary difficult because of different currencies and lifestyles
- Adapted/ additional question: "Are you content with your salary?"

- [x] Demographics: Structure of RSE unit? single person with a passion, part of infra, single RSE in research group

- [x] Do you have a clear career path ahead of you and do you know what you have to do to move "up"?
- Suggestion: bring back likert5a, likert5c, likert5e
- + If I were to quit my job, it would be because of (formulate positive way?):
- too much stress
- too little pay
- uninteresting work
- want to go to industry
- ...

- [x] In your position, do you have a clearly defined career trajectory?
- ...

- [x] Do you have access to research grants in your institutions/country?
- ...

- In order to move "up", how much do you care about
- 1. metrics measuring the research contributions, e.g. h-index
- 2. industrial certifications
- > Comment SW: Not sure what this is telling us or even who this question is for?

- [x] In your next career step, would you chose:
1. a promotion in your current institution
1. same or promoted role in a different institution
1. different branch of research/engineering
1. different sector: industry or academia
1. retire

- [x] How well are you aware about the state-of-the-art with employment in alternative roles/institutions/branches/sectors?

- [x] What is the significance of the following communication channels for building such an awareness:
- social media advertising
- inter-/national professional communities, e.g. Nordic RSE
- internal work environment

- Cross border vs national vs institutional collaborations
- Comment SW: Don't know how to formulate
- Would you say you are less or more likely to collaborate with someone geographically close by?
- Comment SW: Don't know how to formulate
----

## Nordics:

- What are Nordic countries? Do we include Baltics? (For country based questions)
- Denmark
- Sweden
- Norway
- Finland
- Iceland
- Based on Nordic-RSE: Included, but not many active members
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Estonia

## Nordics dissemination channels
- NRSE Dissemination channels?
- NRSE mailing list
- Zulip chat
- What organizations can we reach?
- CSC, FI(SW)
- Scientific Computing Ambassadors (SW)
- Aalto uni, FI (SW, via EG)
- NeIC (SW)
- Nordic 5 tech (SW, via EG)
- UiO Library (SW via EP)
- KTH Library (SW via RL)
- HI (SW via EH/HM)
- DTU Library (SW via JH)
- UiT (GD via NRIS newsletter)
- InfraVis (MT)
- GU HumDev (MT)
- HumInfra Sweden (MT)

---

## Questions to take a closer look at (please add)

- [x] - List any professional qualifications you hold (eg. P. Eng, PMP, …).
- ?
- Not sure what these abbreviations mean
- [x] - Do you work full time or part time?
- What if you work full time but only part of your job is related to RSE?
- [x] - What is the nature of your current employment?
- What if it is part this and part that?
- What is a 'zero hours contract'?
- [x] - Please select the discipline(s) in which you work. Please select all that apply.
- Who came up with this list? I can't even describe 50% of my work ("Archaeology" is missing. I wonder what else. No problem finding "American Studies" though...)
- [x] - In general, when your software contributes to a paper, are you acknowledged in that paper?
- More options? E.g. do you have to fight to get acknowledged or does it happen automatically?
- [x] - How many software projects are you currently involved in?
- What about people who are involved in data projects, server projects or hardware projects?
- [x] - What is the bus factor of your most important software project? (The bus factor designates the minimal number of developers that have to be hit by a bus (or quit) before a project is incapacitated
- Could also be lottery factor (number of people that have to win the lottery and leave the project...)
- [x] - Which of the following sources are used to pay for your effort as a Research Software Engineer?
- Additional option: Don't know ?
- [x] - Are you a member of any of the following associations of Research Software Engineers (called "Research Software Developers" in Canada)?
- Links to bluesky, LinkedIn, Mastodon rather than twitter
- Open answer: To provide option to list other associations we might not know of or are currently not active (eg Danish RSE)
- [x] - Which online collaboration tools and open repositories do you use for software development?
- Is this tools like GitHub? A select field or help sentence might help.
- [x] - How often do you consider leaving your job?
- Scale 1-10 was surprising here for me. I would rather ask how likely you are leaving your job in the next 12 months.

## Additional question suggestions

- [x] Additional question: what license to you license your software under?
- Also: does your group / institution has a specific requirement on software licenses?
- [x] Interesting question to add: do you think the practices in your department are consistent with secure practices in sofwtare engineering? (E.g. easy for people who are not sysadmins or formed to learn about security to create security liabilities...)
- Connected: Do you have a person for security/legal questions in your organization? (with answers like Yes, but never contacted, Yes, feel comfortable contacting, Don't know, ...)
- [x] Are you part of Science IT (or something along those lines)?
- [x] Have you published a software paper (JOSS, Software-x or similar)?
- [x] In addition to the promotion questions: Do you see a way forward in your current role (career path)? Do you know what a promotion would look like/ what you would need to do for promotion?
- [x] Country of work vs country of origin
- [×] Salary difficult because of different currencies and lifestyles
- Adapted question: "Are you content with your salary?"
- [x] What branch of university are you part of? Who are you providing services to? -> There was a question "Does your group call themselves RSE"?
- infrastructure uni or faculty
- research group
- national infrastructure
- non-academic
- (here too, multiple choice)
- [x] Nordic: Are you participating in any labor union? (they can negotiate salary etc; are labor unions aware of RSE roles?)
- Feeling that labor unions are not aware of RSE role
- [x] I was missing or overlooked questions about documentation and planning of projects. How to avoid the situation where researchers want something and RSEs deliver something else because the specifications were not clearly communicated (the meme with the swing)
- [x] I was missing or overlooked questions about planning for the time when a project ends. What happens then?

## General comments

- [x] How about providing hints/links on doing these things in question? -> Provide learning experience if people answer no/don't know etc.
- [x] In general too many questions about software developing, while a lot of RSE do anything computer-related
- infrastructure, HPC also included in Nordics -> could be Nordic specific
- many hired to do RSE but also do infrastructure,
- infra big part of the work
- could link to size of uni and which branch / department
- at least: What percentage of your time goes to Software
- Time suggested is quite long, might scare people away, suggestion to reduce time or amount of questions
- [x] Many questions on background, but not much on how skills were acquired
- nor whether you use your background in your job
- [x] Where does the list of background domain come from? Does not make much sense for Europe (Archeology missing)
- How about a decision tree, first larger field and then more detailed?
- [x] Question about Github account in questions for the UK: why not in other contries?
- Question: should the "personalized" part of the form be related to country or to RSE association? Or both?
- not all are in associations, so country of affiliation seems best

## News from committee

New format:
Questions about you
Employment
Perception of current position
Working practices
[Country specific questions not located elsewhere]
Demographic questions

Questions tagged for removal
- [x] How many software projects are you currently involved - suggestions to keep
-

Questions discussed for removal
- [x] 1st question: in my group (which is an RSE-ish group) I work on a couple of long-term projects mostly, thus working mostly with the same researchers. But some of my colleagues tend to be on shorter-term projects and thus with different researchers. I don't see how their reason begets the question.
- [x] 2nd/3rd: recognition also important from peers, what does "recognition" mean in this context? Is this about supervisor/peers thinking we do an important work, or is it about them feeling that we should get citations, outputs, etc for our contributions?

- [x] 3rd question: how much can we get out of this really? Amount of data aside, much of the tools we use for collaboration are not of our own choice (ask a room of RSEs how many are forced to use Teams and you'll see what I mean :) )
- [x] Last 3 still of interest, covered elsewhere? How happy are people in their position? (can be momentarily and happiness close to despair) How likely are you to leave job within last/next 12 months. Away from RSE / uni/ ..? Would you take another RSE position? How often do you consider leaving your job (within a certain time frame?) ? And why? What do you see as alternatives?
- [x] How often do you consider leaving your job + if > 1/month -> why (found an interesting job offer, advance)
- Have people worked in industry/ other place (can they compare?)

Question edits

## General new comments