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!”
Author: Stephanie Thompson
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”
BEAR Challenge 2025
Over the three days of 24-26 June, we welcomed 90 undergraduate and postgraduate taught students to #BEARChallenge2025. In an attempt to meet demand for places, this year we expanded to allow 15 teams but demand also rose at a pace, with 31 teams registering their interest! It is great to see the level of interest … Continue reading “BEAR Challenge 2025”
RSE Midlands 2025
Senior Research Software Engineers James Tyrrell and Gavin Yearwood led the organisation of RSE Midlands 2025, and below James gives a summary of this successful event. The Advanced Research Computing team hosted the Research Software Engineering (RSE) Midlands 2025 Annual Conference at The Exchange on Monday 7 April, 2025. Sponsored and supported by our partners … Continue reading “RSE Midlands 2025”
SSI Research Software Maintenance Fund
The Software Sustainability Institute recently announced that they’ll be running the first Research Software Maintenance Fund. The scheme will offer up to £500k for two years or up to £150k for one year “to support and maintain existing research software or sustain a team responsible for multiple software tools”. The closing date for Expressions Of … Continue reading “SSI Research Software Maintenance Fund”
Planned work to improve resilience of the Research Data Store
Users of the Research Data Store (RDS) may have noticed intermittent performance issues affecting storage recently, which has been causing some disruption to users. This work is a necessary precursor to a major program of work in which we will replace, expand and enhance, the RDS service. Phase 1 Between now and summer 2025 we … Continue reading “Planned work to improve resilience of the Research Data Store”