Fellow Feature: Stefan Kirsch
Every year, the Netherlands eScience Center shares a call for applications for our Fellowship Programme. The Programme is aimed at members of the academic research community who are passionate about acting as ambassadors for the use of research software. It is for individuals who have the ambition to promote or improve the use of research software within their organization or discipline. Our 2024-2025 fellows are currently halfway through their fellowship yeaEvery year, the Netherlands eScience Center shares a call for applications for our Fellowship Programme. The Programme is aimed at members of the academic research community who are passionate about acting as ambassadors for the use of research software. It is for individuals who have the ambition to promote or improve the use of research software within their organization or discipline. Our 2024-2025 fellows are currently halfway through their fellowship year. What better time to showcase their progress over the course of their programme.
We will present you with interviews with each of the Fellows. From creating tutorials to organizing interactive seminars, our Fellows are at the forefront of shaping the landscape of research software practices.
Keep reading to learn more about the progress of the project, ‘Building on Tilburg University’s fifth C: CAFÉ!’ led by Stefan Kirsch, a data steward at Tilburg University.
What is the goal of your project?
Tilburg University is well known for its research in Social Sciences, Humanities, Economics, Business, Law, and Theology. From this context, the four core values of Caring, Connected, Curious and Courageous (aka the four C’s) were established. But it’s also no secret that these disciplines are not the most well-versed in tech, which means there is still a lot of room for improvement regarding open, efficient, and reproducible digital sciences. So, let’s work on a fifth C together! What could that be, you ask? Carnival? Trust me, we got plenty of that already! Community? Closer! (Pizza) Crust? Almost! Yes, you got it! CAFÉ: Code along and feel empowered! Let’s bring good practices in research software development to the heart of Brabant! And while we are at it, let’s make it fun and accessible, too! Luckily, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel for this, because we already have a great playbook for the CAFÉ method.
What role does research software play in your daily activities?
Almost everything in my role has to do with Research Software in one way or another. While I’m not writing as much software as I did a year ago, I do a lot more in what you could call “Research Software Communication,” which involves everything from giving advice on best practices to teaching and community building.
What initially inspired you to apply to the Fellowship Programme at the eScience Center?
It is simply an amazing program overall. From the moment I heard about it for the first time in the beginning of 2023, I wanted to be a part of it. Me and a colleague spoke to an alumnus of the program back then and she confirmed that it would be a great opportunity to promote projects and get access to a great community of lovely and motivated people. Back then we didn’t have a great project in the pipeline, but that had changed by 2024!
How is your Fellowship helping you promote the use of research software in your own community?
It is difficult to quantify what impact the Coding Café has made so far, but what I have already noticed is that more researchers are reaching out to the RSEs at our school with their coding ideas. In general, I feel we are able to offer people some reassurance that writing software in academia isn’t this weird niche thing that you (and only you) are doing because your research is so strange that you can’t just do it with the closed-source tools everyone is using. People seem to realize that writing software doesn’t have to be a lonely endeavour, but that it’s something a lot of people do and that it’s also appreciated on various levels.
What have you enjoyed, thus far, during your Fellowship at the eScience Center?
Everyone from the eScience Center (within the program and also outside of it) has simply been fabulous to work with. Everyone is super knowledgeable, professional and, overall, friendly and supportive.
What are some challenges that you have faced throughout your project, thus far? How have you overcome these obstacles?
I think the biggest one is the administrative effort with advertising the sessions. Even though Tilburg University is relatively small, there are a ton of different parties, all with their own communication channels and it’s difficult to reach out and communicate with everyone. And then, of course, we have to do the same thing again 2 months later! Luckily, we were able to create a dedicated newsletter for the Coding Café that will hopefully make it a bit easier to reach out to everyone who’s interested!
Keeping this project in mind, what do you hope to do after your Fellowship?
At the moment, it looks like we can continue the event series with the Tilburg University budget after the eScience Center Fellowship ends, which I’m very happy with. From the beginning, I saw the program as a push to establish this session format so that we can secure the budget going forward as well. So right now, it looks like we accomplished that mission!
What do you hope will change in the use of research software in your community after your Fellowship?
It will be an ongoing process to educate researchers and communicate about research software. A big one will surely be the advent of AI coding and all the technology that will emerge around it. I hope that at some point we’ll get to a place where we have a more proactive community, with researchers contributing more actively.
What would you say to people who are interested in applying for future Fellowship Programmes?
Talk to some alumni Fellows and if you like what you hear, go for it! I think the program is striking a perfect balance between the effort it is to apply and your chances to actually get it.
Who are we?
The eScience Center is a research organization dedicated to applying research software to answer research questions in any scientific domain through project collaborations. It has the largest concentration of dedicated, high-level research software expertise in the Netherlands. The eScience Center also has a fellowship programme and makes all of its software and training materials openly available online. For more information about what we offer, visit esciencecenter.nl.