About the job:
Fortran is one of the oldest programming languages still in active use today, having been first developed 70 years ago. Despite its age, it continues to contribute, and in some cases is indispensable, to many international science and engineering projects and products, such as climate change modelling. The FortranFuture NetworkPlus project is a three-year EPSRC-funded project that seeks to answer the high-level question: How do we sustain sciences, and engineering disciplines, currently dependent on Fortran so that they continue to advance knowledge – and contribute to society, the economy and the environment – for the next 70 years? Initially at least, FortranFuture takes a neutral position on this question, intentionally not presupposing an answer. Whatever the way forward for sciences currently dependent on Fortran – e.g., to invest in or divest of Fortran – there is the critical need to develop a strong international community in this area, to ensure that non-technical issues and challenges are sufficiently well understood, and to ensure appropriate tooling and other resources (including education and training) are available. Thus, there is the vital need to engage with complex sociopolitical expectations and constraints.
FortranFuture is an interdisciplinary collaboration between software engineering and social science researchers at Queen’s University Belfast and University of Southampton. The project has (currently) 25+ institutional partners (in the UK and internationally) and, separately, a community of practice of 75+ practitioners, including research software engineers, computational scientists and other stakeholders and policy makers. FortranFuture will strengthen the existing community of practice, establish an interdisciplinary research network, undertake qualitative research (and potentially also quantitative research) to understand the communities’ needs and priorities, and develop a roadmap for the future of Fortran based science. To support this activity and outputs, FortranFuture has flexible funding to fund small/er investigative projects undertaking by practitioners and researchers that will complement the work of the Research Fellow and the core investigative team.
We anticipate the role will involve some hybrid working. The start date for this post will be 1 September 2026 (or after).
About the person
The successful candidate must have, and your application should clearly demonstrate that you meet the following essential criteria:
To be successful at shortlisting stage, please ensure you clearly evidence in your application how you meet the essential and, where applicable, desirable criteria listed in the Candidate Information.
Fixed term contract posts are available for the stated period in the first instance but in particular circumstances may be renewed or made permanent subject to availability of funding.
What we offer:
Beyond a competitive salary, the University offers an attractive benefits package including a holiday entitlement of up to 8.4 weeks a year, pension schemes and development opportunities. We support staff wellbeing with flexible working options, work-life balance initiatives and support for physical and mental health. You can find more detail on all of this and more at https://www.qub.ac.uk/directorates/HumanResources/pay-reward-and-benefits/.
Queen's University is committed to promoting equality of opportunity to all. We subscribe to Equality Charter Marks such as the Diversity Charter Mark NI and Athena Swan and have established staff networks such as iRise (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic and International Staff Network) and PRISM (LGBTQ+) which help us progress equality. For further information on our commitment to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, please visit www.qub.ac.uk/diversity.
If you are an international applicant and don't already hold a visa that permits you to take up the role you are applying for, please use the information provided on our website to self-assess whether the University is likely to be able to support a visa application - http://go.qub.ac.uk/internationalstaffsupport.
Candidate Information
