Presenter: Carine Dengler from EPFL
Independence is one of the cornerstones of the research ecosystem, and as research software engineers we can support independent research through the tools we pick. Another core pillar is communication, which is why the research software engineers from the Center for Digital Trust (C4DT) and the Center for Imaging set up matrix.epfl.ch for EPFL’s research community.
Matrix is an open-source, open-protocol, secure and decentralised chat platform, which is the kind of solution universities need when they want to foster independent research. The service has been readily adopted by researchers and research software engineers alike, and together with the Matrix instance of our sister institution ETH Zurich played an important role in connecting the RSE communities across Switzerland.
In our talk we will walk you through the tech stack, show how we keep the service running - and evolving - on a tight budget, and talk about the community-building efforts to turn what started as a grassroots service into a sustainable, long-term solution.