STEP-UP Blog

Welcome to our STEP-UP project blog! In this blog section of the website we’ll be publishing regular blog posts by members of the STEP-UP project team, our collaborators and members of the wider technical professionals community. We’ll also occasionally be cross-posting relevant content published by members of our team under open licences at other locations.

• What is a research software analyst?

  This month Arianna Ciula writes about her role at King’s Digital Lab as a research software analyst (RSA). King’s Digital Lab (KDL) is an embedded RSE team in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at King’s College London. How is being an RSA different from being a research software engineer (RSE)? What skills are needed for this role? How widespread is the role in UK dRTP teams?

• Recruiting digital research technical professionals: do job descriptions reflect the work they do?

  The STEP-UP team wanted to know whether digital Research Technical Professional (dRTP) job descriptions reflect emerging patterns of competencies across the sector. If so we might be able to use them to identify dRTP training needs.

• Licensing, credit and quality for research software

  A summary of presentations and discussions on software licencing with RSEs.

• What are the training pathways into being a dRTP?

  A core aspect of STEP-UP is providing our community with the support to develop the skills that they need. These should create additional routes for individuals to widen their skills, especially at more advanced levels.

• The STEP-UP RSLondon Conference 2025

  The STEP-UP RSLondon conference 2025 was our biggest regional dRTP gathering yet, and our first to have parallel tracks for research software, research data and research computing infrastructure.

• Open Science Workshop: Professionalising data, software, and infrastructure support to transform open science

  What is the role of upksilling dRTPs to promote open science?

• Supporting digital Research Technical Professionals: Building a community, shaping careers

  With a growing recognition of the technical skills needed to underpin modern research, a UKRI-funded project has been launched to support a community of professionals with these skills. In this blog post, project leader Jeremy Cohen describes STEP-UP and how it will give this community the infrastructure they deserve.