Software development
GRICAD provides numerical services to facilitate software development:
An academic software forge, GRICAD GitLab, offering complete project management, fostering collaboration, and enabling documentation, dissemination, and interaction with users of these projects.
The ability to execute digital notebooks (i.e., Jupyter notebooks) on high-performance computing infrastructures or dedicated JupyterHub platforms.
Beyond the services offered, GRICAD supports research communities in their source code development through requests for assistance and partnerships within scientific projects. This support includes expertise in:
- Best practices and software development tools.
- Appropriate technology selection.
- Providing relevant infrastructure for software development and deployment.
- This accompaniment can take the form of ad-hoc expertise but, in most cases, involves co-supervising staff involved in development tasks, recruited within scientific projects.
Finally, GRICAD is deeply engaged in training and fostering software development:
- Dedicated modules at the UGA’s College of Doctoral Schools.
- Continuous training for units under its supervision.
- Laboratory or professional network seminars.
- Interventions in CNRS teacher-training courses (ANF).
A Focus on Computational Reproducibility
Since its inception, GRICAD has made it a priority to provide research communities across the Grenoble site and beyond with tools and guidance to enhance the reproducibility of their numerical experiments. This commitment is evident whether in the design of our services (deploying reproducible software environments using Nix or Guix on computing infrastructures, academic forge) or in the training and events where we participate. Computational reproducibility is a strong theme that underscores our mission of support.
GRICAD is also heavily involved in national initiatives to promote these practices and tools: French Research Reproducible Network Bureau, co-organizing the Guix Café.