RSAA26 - A research software community event for Asia and Australia

Do you want to learn what others are doing in research software in your domain and in other domains? Or do you want to discuss with others how you balance researcher needs with good software practices? Or maybe you are the only person working on research software in your group?

If so, you might want to join us for RSAA26, the fifth online annual Research Software Asia Australia Conference, from the 25th to the 28th of August 2026. This is a joint partnership between the RSE Asia Association and the RSE Association of Australia and New Zealand. The theme for this year is “Connecting with Community” and the hashtag will be #RSAA26.

RSAA25 Accessibility Fellow Reports

Accessibility Fellow Report - Seaumul Khandaker

Accessibility Fellow Report - Safaet Hossain

Why would someone go to RSAA26?

Some of the other motivations for attending might include:

To talk about difficulties in career progression and lack of recognition with others who work on research software
To share the interesting work you have done in research software
To learn from others how to make their research software more visible
To learn about how others create applications for researchers
To learn about how others streamline and scale their research workflows
To discuss with others how they balance researcher needs with good software practices
To discuss with others how they make their research software easier to use

Important Dates:

Event	Opens on	Closes on	Notification of Result of Application
Call for Proposal	TBA	TBA	TBA
Call for Accessibility Fellowship	TBA	TBA	TBA
Call for Micro-grants	TBA	TBA	Communicated on a rolling basis
Call for Scholarships	TBA	TBA	Communicated on a rolling basis
Call for Volunteer (Co-Program Managers, Reviewer, Session Chair)	TBA	Not Applicable	Communicated on a rolling basis
Event Registration (Early Bird, Scholarship, and Micro-grant)	TBA	TBA	Not Applicable
Event Registration (Standard)	TBA	TBA	Not Applicable

Registration for RSAA26 will open soon.

Call for Presentations

The Call for Presentations (CFP) for the Research Software Asia Australia Conference 2026 (RSAA26) will be announced soon. This year’s theme, “Connecting with Community,” focuses on fostering collaboration and engagement within the research software community.

For more details, please refer to the Call for Presentations document when available.

Author Guidelines

Thank you for your interest in contributing to the Research Software Asia Australia Conference 2026 (RSAA26). To ensure a smooth submission and presentation experience, please follow the guidelines provided in the Author Guidelines document.

Call for Workshops

We invite proposals for workshops to be held on the first day of RSAA26 (Tuesday, 25th August 2026), focusing on interactive, skills-focused sessions that engage participants in hands-on learning, tool development, or collaborative discussions within the research software community.

Accessibility and Inclusivity

We are committed to creating a safe, accessible, and inclusive environment for all participants.

In 2022, Liz Hare provided a high-level accessibility report for the conference that we use as a benchmark for our performance.

To this end we are offering scholarships for staff or students to participate for free, as well as 10 accessibility micro-grants valued at $50 AUD to help with internet, headphones, childcare etc.

Eligibility for the scholarships will be based on prioritising and maximising the inclusion and participation of people who have been impacted due to the cumulative effects of discrimination on factors such as race, gender, disability, gender identity, financial status, and the intersectionality of that discrimination, as well as others not mentioned here.

Eligibility for the accessibility micro-grants will be based on a similar approach.

We encourage participants to apply even if they do not think they are eligible as this will allow us to prioritise and maximise diversity and inclusion. All information will be treated in a confidential manner.

You will need to provide one short paragraph to explain how you will benefit from the scholarship or micro-grant.

All successful recipients of scholarships and accessible micro-grants are expected to submit a poster for the event.

If you feel that the conference is not matching up to the commitment of these ideals, please let us know by contacting the organising committee at info at rseaa.org.

You can also apply to be an Accessibility Fellow. The RSAA26 Accessibility Fellowship aims to encourage individuals with disabilities - such as those who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind, have low vision, or have other disabilities - from within our community or adjacent communities to join RSAA26. Their involvement will help ensure we are held accountable for the accessibility of this online event.

Code of Conduct

The Code of Conduct is designed to provide all participants with community participation guidelines.

What is a Research Software Engineer (RSE)?

Research Software Engineer is a broad term for people who combine programming and research skills that have trouble defining their role and value within academia. e.g

researchers and academics who code,
generalists who bring communities together across the research and technical domains,
people who help train researchers to improve their code on HPC and Cloud systems, and
software engineers who work in the research domain.

Contact Us

If you would like to know more or have any questions, please contact the organising committee at [email protected] by email.

Marketing materials

Our marketing materials for RSAA26 are here.

Previous RSEAA conferences

*The Microsoft CMT service was used for managing the peer-reviewing process for this conference. This service was provided for free by Microsoft and they bore all expenses, including costs for Azure cloud services as well as for software development and support.*