Have you started your coding journey, but want to move beyond Jupyter Notebooks to creating your own applications and libraries? Do you enjoy coding but want to improve your core skills so you can confidently access and use the massive repositories of open-source software for your research?

In this summer school, you will learn how to create and integrate software into your research by developing the foundational programming skills needed in the digital research domain.

What to expect

This summer school is aimed at researchers that have coded before with Python but want to further develop their broader programming skills, such as version control with Git, operating the command-line terminal, and using open-source software repositories. These intermediate programming skills will enable you to find and use a much broader range of open-source data and software.

In addition, participants will be taught to critically engage with research software throughout the research process, from operationalising your research questions into coding problems to the ethics of data scraping.

At the end of the summer school, participants will not only be able to create their own software solutions to research problems, but also use preceding work by other scholars, and even contribute to the open-source software landscape themselves.

The goals of the research software summer school are twofold: to help researchers become better coders and better programmers. This means not only learning about coding practices and applications, but also interfacing with questions around research design, analysing other software libraries, and learning the conventions of contributing to open-source software.

Bring your own research

Participants are asked to bring their own research projects so that they can work on their own research questions while developing their programming skills. This does not need to be a fully developed research idea; it could be a pilot project or even just a research question and a dataset. Participants will work on their projects throughout the week and can receive follow-up support from a research software engineer.

Learning objectives

Programming skills, including:

• Wielding the command-line terminal using Bash
• Version control and collaboration with Git
• Going beyond notebooks to full-fledged Python applications (including virtual environments)
• Deploying research software locally using Docker
• Web scraping and accessing datasets through APIs
• Advanced debugging

Software-critical skills, including:

• Finding, understanding, using, and adapting open-source code
• Operationalisation of research questions into software problems
• Writing good documentation
• Writing the research software component in a funding application
• Awareness of the ethics and regulations around scraping data from online sources

Timeline

• Preparatory homework: one day (self-paced). The assignment will be send to you one week before the start of the summer school.
• On-site course: 29 June – 3 July 2026
  • Monday: Git, virtual environments, requirements, and the command line
  • Tuesday: Reproducible code and advanced Git
  • Wednesday: Operationalisation, advanced debugging, and working on your own project
  • Thursday: Web scraping, ethics, and working on your own project
  • Friday: Interactive visualisations, publishing software, and working on your own project
• Optional return day: Autumn 2026

We also offer an individual feedback session after the conclusion of the summer school to help participants in further developing their projects.

Level

Participants should have a basic understanding and practical experience in Python programming:

• Writing simple programs or notebooks
• Implementing simple algorithms
• Being familiar with writing functions, data types, and basic text processing in Python

All required skills can be obtained in any entry-level Python course.

You do not need to have published a library, created your own full application, or used programming in a published paper to qualify.

Who can apply?

The summer school welcomes researchers in the Humanities and Social Sciences – from PhD candidates to professors – from any Dutch university or research institute. Small groups are encouraged to participate and work together on a shared project.

Capacity: max 34 participants

Language

The language of instruction is English. The hosts also speak Dutch, so questions may be asked in Dutch. As long as you have a good understanding of English, you are welcome to participate.

Selection procedure

Applicants will be asked to submit a short motivation, a brief description of their research project, and a short description of their prior programming experience in a research context.

Practical information

The summer school will take place on-site at the Utrecht University Library City Centre (Drift 27, Utrecht).

Rooms:

• Monday: Room 0.21
• Tuesday: Room 0.21
• Wednesday: Room 0.21
• Thursday: Room 1.25 (Tielezaal)
• Friday: Room 0.21

Lunch and coffee/tea are included.

Participation fee: €25.

Registration

Please complete the registration form below. If your application is accepted, you will receive a confirmation email and a link to pay the registration fee.

Partners

• CDH Research Software Lab – Utrecht University
• CDH Data School – Utrecht University
• ODISSEI
• KNAW Humanities Cluster
• CLARIAH
• Tilburg University
• eScience Center

This event is part of the project “Daidalos – A Social Sciences and Humanities Training on Research Software” (file no. ICT.TDCC.001.006), funded in part by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) through the Thematic Digital Competence Centre Social Sciences & Humanities (TDCC-SSH).