In September, I attended my sixth RSECon25. I wore many hats at the event, but I was mainly there with my SSI fellowship hat on. I had the opportunity to talk to RSE Leaders and the other attendees about my work on the ConveRSE project, as well as catching up with faces old and new. RSECon is always one of the highlights of the year for me (along with Collaborations Workshop, obviously!), and this year was no exception.

Let’s Talk About Mental Health

First, I gave a lightning talk at the RSE Leaders and Aspiring Leaders Workshop on Monday. This was a great opportunity to encourage the leaders to get involved and spread the word amongst their teams. I felt it was important to talk to them, as line managers and team leaders can have a massive impact on a person’s mental health in the workplace. I was keen for them to contribute to ConveRSE by sharing tips and advice on how to look after their teams, so that we can provide all leaders with the tools to do this effectively.

Then, on Wednesday, I got to give my full talk to the audience at the conference. I told them two stories: first, my story, about my own experiences and struggles with mental health. Then, I talked about how I came to apply for the SSI Fellowship, what I’d been up to so far, my plans for the future, and how to get involved

I don’t like to think about how many people were towering over me in that colossal amphitheatre of a lecture hall. It’s difficult being an anxious person and having to talk to a room full of people about your anxiety! However, the talk included an interactive element, using Mentimeter, and there were 100 people who contributed, both in the room and online. Thank you to everyone who contributed. I plan to do a separate blog post to discuss the data I collected at a later date.

The talk seemed to go well. I was grateful to have such a large audience, given that there were five tracks of incredible talks, workshops and other things going on. I got a lot of good feedback and had a lot of interesting conversations after the talk, as well as during my time on the RSE Society and SSI stands. I gave out a lot of stickers and leaflets too!

The Society will be posting recordings of all of the talks on their YouTube Channel in the coming months, so if you weren’t at RSECon or missed the talk, you will be able to catch up. I would also love to continue the conversation, so please get in touch if you would like me to deliver a version of this talk at your institution.

The rest of the event

I didn’t get to go to a huge number of other talks. I also had to wear my RSE Society Trustee hat, and my duties included addressing the AGM, overseeing this year’s trustee elections and announcing RSECon26, and its co-location with the first International Research Software Conference. I also decided to take my own advice and stay hydrated and take plenty of breaks, which I’m usually pretty bad at at conferences!

I was also delighted to be one of four official Mental Health First Aiders at the event. I know a few people needed to make use of our services, so I’m glad the conference organisers invited us to be part of it (and I’m grateful to the SSI for sponsoring my training as part of my fellowship).

I enjoyed the keynotes from Amanda Brock, Simon Hettrick and Tania Allard. Another highlight was one of the other talks in my session: “Let’s stop pretending to be Unicorns” by Marion Weinzierl. It was an interesting discussion about how the traditional role of plug-and-play, generalist RSEs who are expected to do everything might not always be the best solution for RSEs or the researchers we collaborate with, including some discussion of how trying to be a unicorn affects our mental health.

Finally, I was delighted to finally get to watch (and meet) Matt ‘StandupMaths’ Parker, who had to cancel a previous appearance at the conference due to Covid. A good laugh was just what we needed at the end of a long day of conferencing!

Final Thoughts

This may have been the most nervous I’ve been giving a talk at a conference, but as always, the research software community were kind, welcoming and supportive. I got to have a lot of interesting conversations, some of which have spawned new ideas for the ConveRSE project, plus I had a few offers for contributions to the website, including both code and blog posts.

My goal is to continue the conversation around mental health in this community, and I don’t think I could have asked for a better opportunity to try and do that.