More Than Top Down or Bottom Up: Fostering Software Engineering Best Practice in Diverse Groups

We often think of practice being driven by grass-roots change (encouraging participation) or clear leadership (providing direction). In reality, successful application of best practice requires both, particularly in the diverse communities where research software is developed and used. Over the last five years, significant changes related to research software have taken place from training initiatives like Software Carpentry, to the recognition of the role of the Research Software Engineer, to the development and adoption of community guidelines and practices. My talk will look at how each of these is related, and how the drive towards reproducibility, FAIR research outputs, and open science is having an effect on the way that software development is being done in research teams.