Last September, a training initiative, called Edinburgh Carpentries, based on The Carpentries model was launched at the University of Edinburgh, in collaboration with other Higher Education and research institutions in the area. Leading this initiative, Giacomo Peru, Institute Project Officer, and Sean McGeever, Computing Manager at the University of Edinburgh, are working towards securing stable institutional support for administration and coordination and to widen community participation, essential for the supply of instructors and helpers at the workshops.

The aim of the initiative is to establish a recurring and coordinated offer of computational training to the research community in Edinburgh. Some courses have already been organised for various departments – for example, standard Software Carpentry and Data Carpentry for Social Sciences –, and more are in the planning stages: Data Carpentry for Genomics and Ecology, Software Carpentry at Geosciences, a series of workshops for the School of Biological Sciences, among others.

Edinburgh Carpentries is supported by the Software Sustainability Institute, and the School of Physics & Astronomy and Information Services at the University of Edinburgh.

If you’re interested in getting involved in this initiative, please send an email to edcarp@ed.ac.uk.