Research Computing Environment

Researchers across the university have access to our Research Computing Environment (RCE) for social science research computing and analysis.  The RCE offers you a centralized place in which to store your data and run your analysis on your own or in collaboration with other researchers.  It also supplies a persistent desktop environment that is accessible from any computer with an internet connection.

The RCE provides access to a variety of text editors, email and web browsers, text processing tools, an office productivity suite, and the full range of graphical and command-line tools provided by a modern, enterprise-grade operating system.

Statistical analysis makes up a significant portion of the work performed in the RCE. We provide access to several popular statistical software packages, including R, Matlab, Mathematica, Stata, and others.

The environment is a graphical interface and should be familiar to users of the Microsoft Windows or Mac OS X operating systems. You access the RCE by using a secure remote access protocol. When connected, your environment is displayed as a virtual desktop that persists even after you disconnect.  You can connect to the RCE from your office, start an analysis, disconnect, and then reconnect to the same session and analysis process from another computer.

For more information about the RCE visit the website at http://projects.iq.harvard.edu/rce