Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR) Newsletter December was an exciting month for the team, as one of the student teams from BEAR Challenge won the national Computing Insight UK Cluster Challenge! Team ‘Beariables’ gave an amazing performance to beat 16 teams from across the UK, and now go on to represent the UK at the International Supercomputing Conference … Continue reading “January 2026 BEAR Newsletter”
Month: January 2026
Call for volunteers to join R User Group Organising Committee!
We’re looking for volunteers to help re-launch the R User Group at the University of Birmingham. This Special Interest Group (SIG) will bring together R users from across the University to share knowledge and skills. R is a popular programming language with many applications and excellent tools for reproducible research. To support R users from … Continue reading “Call for volunteers to join R User Group Organising Committee!”
Update – 2024 IT Needs of Active Research survey progress
It has been nearly two years since the last Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research (PVC-R) ‘IT Needs of Active Research Survey’ was released, and as we prepare for the next survey, we wanted to update you on some actions that IT Services has taken since we analysed the results of the 2024 survey. You can find … Continue reading “Update – 2024 IT Needs of Active Research survey progress”
We’re recruiting! Permanent Grade 7 Research Software Engineer (RSE)
Advanced Research Computing (ARC) at the University of Birmingham is seeking to appoint a Research Software Engineer (RSE). This is a permanent post in the Research Software Group (RSG), part of the award-winning ARC team, which has earned a national and international profile. As an RSE you will join the 15 RSEs and Senior RSEs … Continue reading “We’re recruiting! Permanent Grade 7 Research Software Engineer (RSE)”
Vibe coding: when programming becomes a feeling
If you’ve ever wished you could build an app without learning to code, vibe coding might sound like the answer. Named Collins Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2025, the term describes the process of creating a website or app simply by telling artificial intelligence what you’d like it to do — and letting the AI write the code for you. … Continue reading “Vibe coding: when programming becomes a feeling”
Cooling works in data centre – upcoming service disruption
We would like to advise BEAR users of upcoming essential maintenance on cooling systems that will impact our services over Easter, in particular the HPC-facility, BlueBEAR, which will be unavailable for two weeks. Background behind the maintenance The Park Grange Data Centre is where the University’s High-Performance Computing systems, BlueBEAR and Baskerville reside, as well … Continue reading “Cooling works in data centre – upcoming service disruption”
Building a community for research computing
Research Computing and Data Community – RCDC The Advanced Research Computing team at the University of Birmingham have been providing several different Special Interest Groups (SIGs) for researchers for many years, to enable interdisciplinary communities to come together with shared interests in particular programming languages, or coding in general. As these SIGs have grown over … Continue reading “Building a community for research computing”