Free consulting for Helmholtz researchers
Practical software engineering help, right where your research project is.
Helmholtz supports researchers with focused, hands-on guidance to make research software more robust, sustainable, and easier to maintain. We meet you at your current maturity level and help you move forward.
Free of charge Helmholtz-wide Confidential by default
Our mission : Direct measures, big impact.
We prioritize actionable recommendations and sustainable practices your team can maintain over time.
Whether we support directly or connect you to the right people, we aim to keep every request moving.
Open Office Hour
Have a quick question about research software or software engineering?
Join our open office hour every Tuesday, 11:00 - 12:00 (online).
You can simply drop in, ask a question, and leave again. No preparation or registration required.
Join the office hour on ZoomWhere we can help
Whether you are starting a new project or maintaining a mature codebase, we help you improve quality, reduce friction, and publish reliable results. We cover engineering good practices, deployment decisions, and sustainable publishing.Testing & automation
Test strategy, CI pipelines, reproducible workflows.
Service deployment and orchestration
Containerization, deployment patterns, APIs, and orchestration advice.
Software design
Architecture, modularization, and sustainable structure.
Tooling & workflows
Git practices, issue management, templates, releases.
Publishing & FAIR
Metadata, citations, and visibility for research software.
Choice of appropriate licenses
Guidance on selecting and applying open-source licenses.
Technology choices
Tool and stack recommendations tailored to your context.
Code audits
Targeted review for maintainability, risks, and improvements.
What to expect
After you submit your request, the consultant best suited to your needs will get back to you. Depending on the scope of your project, a single response or meeting may be enough, or it may lead to further exchanges over several weeks or months.
We’ll help you with
- Scoped consultations that prioritize the most impactful next steps.
- Actionable recommendations tailored to your project context.
- Review of current practices with quick wins and longer-term improvements.
- Templates or training sessions when they help your team move faster.
- Guidance on publishing, sustainability, and appropriate licensing.
We’ll point you elsewhere for
- Long-term ownership or full-time development for your software.
- Implementing features or taking over daily engineering work.
- 24/7 operations, on-call support, or guaranteed capacity.
- Legal advice (licensing guidance is non‑binding).
Acknowledging support
Our consulting service is free of charge. If our support contributes to your work, we appreciate an acknowledgement of the consulting service in resulting publications or software repositories.
This helps us demonstrate the impact of the service and continue supporting the Helmholtz research community. For details, see our Publication policy for collaboration with HIFIS Software Engineering Consulting.
Meet our friends - Other Helmholtz services
Besides Software Consulting, Helmholtz offers specialized support in areas like AI, imaging, research data stewardship and training.
AI and machine learning consulting, tooling, and expertise.
Visit Helmholtz AI
Support for imaging workflows, data, and community resources.
Visit Helmholtz Imaging
Metadata and data stewardship support across Helmholtz.
Visit HMC
Training opportunities to strengthen software and data skills.
Visit HIDAGet in touch
Please fill out the form below with the details of your project and the specific issues you need help with. If the request is successfully submitted, a confirmation email will be sent. If something goes wrong, please email support@hifis.net.
This form will create a confidential issue in a Codebase project. Alternatively, you can open the issue directly there .