The project idea/directive grew out of two courses given at PDC/KTH in 2014 and 2015, which focused on research software engineering tools and techniques.
The courses were popular and it was clear that the demand is not limited to the Stockholm region and we approached the Nordic e-Infrastructure Collaboration (NeIC), a state-funded Nordic public funding organization, to bring this project to a Nordic level, both to have more impact, but also to connect instructors across Nordic borders. The first grant was 2016--2018, with NeIC, CSC (Finland), SNIC (Sweden), DeIC (Denmark), and UNINETT Sigma2 (Norway) as partners.
The first CodeRefinery workshop was given late 2016 and since then the lesson material has evolved a lot and we have delivered many more workshops, both in-person and online.
In 2018 the project has received follow-up funding from NeIC for 3 more years, 2018--2021. The partners were the same as the first phase, but now including the University of Tartu (Estonia). Aalto University (Finland) formally joined the last year after being a long-term voluntary participant.
In 2020, COVID-19 hit, and everyone went online. We didn't take an opportunity to do the same thing, but online, while waiting for things to become normal. Instead, we took advantage of being equally close to each other (online) as to our previous in-person teams (now online) to work together much more closely than we used to. We developed an extensive and unique CodeRefinery teaching style which stayed with us even post-Covid.
In 2021 the project successfully applied to the NeIC open call for another 3 years, 2022--2025. The focus of this phase is to produce a sustainable organization that can exist without NeIC's funding. The partners at the beginning of the phase were NeIC, Aalto University, Aarhus University CHCAA (Denmark), Aalborg University CLAAUDIA (Denmark), CSC (Finland), DeiC (Denmark), ENCCS (Sweden), NAISS (formerly SNIC; Sweden), Sigma2 (Norway), and the University of Oslo USIT (Norway).
CodeRefinery now welcomes other partners to join.