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Our friends at the DisCouRSE NetworkPlus, one of our fellow UKRI Digital Research Infrastructure projects, have published the final report from another of their first-round funded projects. Led by Phil Bradbury, Research Software Engineer at the University of Manchester, the five-month project brought together dRTP leaders from Manchester, Durham and York to set up a new Community of Practice for operational managers, and to open source Capacity eXtended (CapX), Manchester’s tool for planning resources, managing operations and reporting on impact.

A quick look at the problem the project set out to tackle, what it delivered, and where to find out more.

The problem: leading without a map

Many digital Research Technical Professional (dRTP) group leaders find themselves in leadership roles without formal training or a clear development pathway. That gap shows up in service delivery and management practice, at a time when leaders are under real pressure to demonstrate impact, make data-informed decisions and win recognition for their teams. To make matters harder, differences in organisational structures and institutional policies mean that what works at one university does not translate easily to another, so sharing knowledge and adopting common tools is difficult.

From a conference talk to a collaboration

The Manchester RSE team, based in Research IT, had built CapX to meet their own needs: a tool that uses integrated data models to help teams plan resources, manage day-to-day operations and report on impact. After they presented it at RSECon25, colleagues from Durham and York got in touch wanting to use it too. That conversation turned into a joint bid to DisCouRSE, with the aims of installing CapX at each institution, stripping out the Manchester-specific parts so that it could be released openly, and building a community of leaders around it as early adopters.

The project ran a training day in Manchester for the Durham and York teams, working through how the tool could fit their rather different needs. York then hosted a follow-up meeting to agree the terms of reference, website and policies and procedures for the new community, and to settle how code changes to CapX would be proposed and reviewed once it was shared more widely.

What the project delivered

Over the five months the project delivered:

  • A dRTP Operational Managers Community of Practice, with agreed terms of reference and a website setting out its aims and objectives
  • CapX released as open source on GitHub, so it can be shared among the membership and beyond
  • CapX live and in initial use at Durham and York, alongside its established use at Manchester
  • A process for overseeing and agreeing code change requests, so the tool can be developed collaboratively

Phil is candid that the team put in far more hours than the funding covered, but notes that without it they would not have been able to dedicate the time to open sourcing CapX or to get the community off the ground with colleagues at other institutions. The funding offset the staff costs and, just as importantly, gave the work focus.

Find out more

If you lead, or help run, an RSE, data or research computing group, the operational side of the job is often the part nobody trained you for, and this community is a place to compare notes with people facing the same challenges. Congratulations to Phil and the teams at Manchester, Durham and York, and to DisCouRSE for backing it — you can browse the rest of their funded projects on their website.