Advanced R

This course is designed for researchers who want to develop reusable and reproducible workflows in R and RStudio. It focuses on the practical challenges that arise when writing reproducible R code: ensuring that others can successfully re-run your analyses, and validating that your code behaves as intended. Throughout the course, we emphasise best practices for producing modular, readable, well-documented, and well-tested R code. Whether you are new to writing structured R programs or simply want to improve the quality and maintainability of your analyses, this course will help you adopt methods that make your work more reliable and reproducible.

Difficulty rating: ★★★★ Advanced

Who is it for? 

Both research staff and research students

Summary of the topics covered

  • Create an R project that generates reproducible outputs
  • Use best practices for developing reproducible R code, i.e. apply techniques to ensure that your code is modular, readable, and well documented
  • Implement unit tests to check that your code is working as expected
  • Manage project dependencies using a reproducible environment (renv)

Prerequisites

Learners should have at least six months of experience using R.

Frequency

1 time a year

Duration

7 hours (over 2 half days)

Next course

10th (09:30 - 13:00) & 11th (13:00 - 16:30) February 2026

 Book here 

Can't attend?

Course materials available : https://bham-carpentries.github.io/2025-03-11-r-advanced/01-introduction.html 

User Group

There is an R user group with links to resources and contacts.

Help with R

If you need help with using R, you can contact our Research Software Group for advice. You can also raise a ServiceDesk ticket with us, or attend one of our drop-in sessions.