By Raniere Silva, Community Officer

We started recruiting for our Fellowship Programme 2018 in August 2017. 44 applications, 176 reviews and two online review meetings later, we are happy to announce our 17 new Software Sustainability Institute Fellows for 2018. With many amazing candidates, our new research software ambassadors represent some of the best people working in—and advocating for—better research software.

Compared to previous years, we noticed a drop by more than half of the number of applications, probably due the changes to this year’s application process, but every reviewer commented that the candidates were excellent and that this was the hardest year so far to select our fellows.

2018 Fellows come from eight fields in the Joint Academic Coding System (JACS) code, including Medical Sciences, Biological Sciences, Physical Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, Engineering, Computer Sciences, Social Studies and Business and Administrative Studies. Their work is supported from BBSRC, EPSRC, MRC, NERC and STFC.

We have representatives from 11 institutions in the UK, including the Cabinet Office for the first time. The University College London and the University of Sheffield are the institutions with more fellows this year (three fellows each). Our theory is that this is a result of the Research Software Engineer groups’ work in those institutions. In addition, we have two Fellows who fit the RSE profile, which highlights the continued representation of those with this role among the Fellowship programme.

As in previous years, 11 out of the 17 fellows this year are early-career researchers, in Research Assistant/Associate, first grant holder, Lecturer and Research Software Engineer positions. However, we also have four junior career and two mid/recognised career Fellows. Our applicants came from different backgrounds and groups. We’re proud to announce that this year more than 40% of our fellows are female.

Take a look at our fellows profiles. Many of them have provided Twitter handles and other details so you can follow their work and make contact if you sense a common interest. If you’d like to meet them in person, our Fellows 2018 will be attending the Institute’s Collaborations Workshop 2018* in Cardiff from the 26-28 March 2018.  

*Collaborations Workshop 2018 will see discussions around culture change, productivity and sustainability in research software. To experience the unconference format which includes lightning talks, keynotes, discussion sessions, mini-workshops, speed blogging, collaborative ideas, a social programme and the hackday, please register in the Eventbrite page.