The Research Software Engineer campaign started life at a Collaborations Workshop in 2012, which was organised by the Software Sustainability Institute (an EPSRC-funded organisation).
The Software Sustainability Institute’s mission is to improve the situation of software in research. Bringing together a community of Research Software Engineers and campaigning for their recognition and reward will have a huge impact on the quality and esteem of software in research, so the Institute agreed to provide some funds and effort to kickstart the community, and to campaign on its behalf.
Success for the Research Software Engineer campaign is far more likely if the community becomes self supporting and independent. For this reason, the Software Sustainability Institute will continue to support the community and campaign for Research Software Engineers, but the community will be steered by a committee made up of Research Software Engineers.