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!”
Author: Stephanie Thompson
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”
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”
Team of undergraduate students wins national computing challenge!
We were so thrilled to hear that team ‘Beariables’ have won the national supercomputing challenge at Computing Insight UK (CIUK2025)! The team of undergraduate students from the University of Birmingham are studying for degrees in the School of Physics & Astronomy, and the School of Computer Science, and competed against 16 other teams from institutions … Continue reading “Team of undergraduate students wins national computing challenge!”
Digital Research Committee working groups
Authors: Carol Sandys and Stephanie Thompson, Advanced Research Computing Some of you may be aware of the exercise that IT Services is undertaking to refresh the Digital Strategy and consider future investment in digital initiatives across the board, including for research. To contribute to that exercise, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research, Professor Rachel O’Reilly, has asked … Continue reading “Digital Research Committee working groups”
HPCwire Award 2025 winners!
For the third year running (see previous awards), we are pleased to announce that a research group who use our advanced computing facilities has been recognised as award-winning in the HPCwire 2025 awards! Advanced Research Computing is very proud to provide Birmingham Environment for Academic Research (BEAR) to support high-impact research at the University, which … Continue reading “HPCwire Award 2025 winners!”
JuliaSIG repository
Dr Vincenzo Brachetta, Chair of the Julia Special Interest Group (SIG), describes below the creation of a repository to share educational resources related to the Julia programming language. Following the establishment of the Julia Programming Language Special Interest Group, which was created with the aim of supporting the growing community of Julia users and enabling … Continue reading “JuliaSIG repository”
Undergraduate student work experience in Advanced Research Computing
In September, two undergraduate students came to spend a week experiencing work in the Advanced Research Computing team. You can find out how their week went below, as they describe their first-hand experience. Our names are Sereya and Harry; we are Theoretical Physics undergraduates who had the opportunity of experiencing a week working in the … Continue reading “Undergraduate student work experience in Advanced Research Computing”
How green is the BEAR? 2025 updates
In 2022, we took part in the University’s Sustainability Town Hall and published a blog post highlighting Advanced Research Computing’s efforts in sustainable computing over the previous decade. Since then, we’ve continued to explore and develop initiatives in this space. With growing concerns around the energy demands of data centres – such as a recent … Continue reading “How green is the BEAR? 2025 updates”