Professor Simon Hettrick is Director of Strategy at the Software Sustainability Institute and a Director of the Southampton Research Software Group.

Simon is a passionate advocate for Research Software Engineers. He orchestrated a campaign to gain recognition for this community, which has grown from a handful of people in 2013 to an international community numbering in the tens of thousands. He was the founding chair of the UK's Association of Research Software Engineers and a founding Trustee of the Society of Research Software Engineering and its Treasurer. He was treasurer of the RSE conference 2016-2019.

Simon is the Chair of the Hidden REF: a national campaign that looks to recognises all research outputs and every role that makes research possible. In this role, Simon campaigns for a broader interpretation of how people can contribute to the conduct of research. The Hidden REF campaign takes some credit for the inclusion of all roles, including non-academic roles, in the 2029 REF.

Simon's research focuses on the use of software in the research community with the aim of understanding practices and demographics. In this role, he conducted the first study of software reliance in academia.