CSC – IT Center for Science is offering two courses in September focused on the R programming language and its use in research data processing and analysis. R is widely used in research for statistical analysis, data visualization, and data processing. Documenting analytical workflows in code can also contribute to the transparency and reproducibility of research. Knowledge of R can therefore be useful not only for researchers themselves, but also for data stewards supporting research teams with data-related activities and management in the context of the FAIR principles and open science.

While Data Analysis with R is aimed at beginners and offers a practical introduction to working with R, High Performance R is designed for more experienced users who want to make their analyses more efficient and take advantage of high-performance computing.

High Performance R

When: September 7–8, 2026, 8:00–15:00 (CEST)
Where: Espoo, Finland & online

High Performance R is aimed at users who already have basic experience with R and want to make their analyses more efficient and better utilize available computing resources. The course will cover topics such as identifying bottlenecks in R code, benchmarking and performance profiling, and memory usage.

The course will also introduce parallel and distributed computing with R, both on local resources and in a supercomputing environment. The training will combine short lectures and demonstrations with hands-on exercises using RStudio and the batch job system on the Roihu supercomputer.

Participants will also learn how the properties of the R language relate to the management of computing resources and how to run R scripts using the batch job system. More advanced participants are welcome to bring a short section of their own R script and a dataset of up to 5 GB to use in some of the exercises.

The course requires basic knowledge of R, such as experience with importing and processing data, creating plots, or carrying out statistical analyses. Basic Linux skills and previous experience with using a supercomputer are useful but not required.

Registration is open until September 2, 2026. The course is free of charge.

More information and registration are available here.

Both courses are organized by CSC – IT Center for Science, a Finnish non-profit company providing digital services for research and education, particularly in the areas of data management and scientific computing. The courses will be taught in English and can be attended either on site or online.

Last updated on August 25, 2026