KeynotesRequirements Engineering 2023

Keynotes

Claes Wohlin: Do We Publish Credible Evidence

Blekinge Institute of Technology, Dept. of Software Engineering, Karlskrona, Sweden

Abstract: Software engineering has moved towards being a more evidence-based discipline. For example, systematic literature studies have become a standard practice in our field. However, to be evidence-based, we, as authors of both primary and systematic literature studies, still need to ensure that we publish credible evidence that researchers and practitioners alike can build upon. The keynote will discuss evidence and illustrate that we need to take action to become more evidence-based and that we are all responsible for improving as authors, reviewers, program chairs and editors. Some of the problems are illustrated generally, and then the findings from analysing a sample of requirements engineering papers are presented before concluding the presentation.

Bio: Claes Wohlin received a PhD in telecommunication systems from Lund University in 1991. He is an Emeritus Professor (from July 1, 2023) of software engineering at Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden, where he has also served as Dean and Pro-Vice-Chancellor. Claes Wohlin has previously held professor chairs at the universities in Lund and Linköping. In 2019, he was appointed Emeritus Editor for the Journal of Information and Software Technology after serving as Editor-in-Chief for 14 years and Editor for three years. He received Telenor’s Nordic Research Prize in 2004 for his achievements in software engineering and improving reliability for telecommunication systems. In 2011, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. Claes Wohlin is on the board of the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research. His research interests include empirical methods in software engineering and software processes and quality.

Rainer Dammers: A Paradigm Shift in the Automotive Industry and its Requirements?

ETAS – Empowering Tomorrow’s Automotive Software, Stuttgart, Germany

Abstract: The automotive market is currently going through significant transformations. Until recently embedded SW was perceived as ‘necessary evil’ - needed for the ECU to function but not providing direct value. This is rapidly changing. Consumers view a vehicle as a smartphone on wheels - in reality it’s a data center on wheels. In this era of the Software Defined Vehicle (SDV) the importance of software is growing, allowing the value of a vehicle to increase over time - compared to today where a vehicle looses value as soon as it rolls of the assembly line - due to the ability to update the software in the field and incrementally add capabilities over a life time. These needs lead to new requirements regarding life time maintainability and re-usability, changing vehicle E/E architectures, and new collaboration models across software domains, from deeply embedded software over edge software to (cloud) backend systems. In addition to the software itself this paradigm shift is changing requirements against development processes, methods and tools. ETAS started early to adapt to the change. In this talk we will share our experience tackling these changes.

Federica Sarro: Search-Based Software Engineering in the Era of Modern Software Systems

University College London

Abstract: This keynote introduces the use of Search-Based Software Engineering (SBSE) to tackle some of the most pressing ethical requirements posed by modern software systems. For example, in automated decision-making software systems and social systems, fairness and safety properties become prominent concerns, whereas the dramatic increase in CO2 emission due to the use of Artificial Intelligence generates growing concerns for software sustainability.

While the main requirement for more traditional software systems is to provide the user with the right functionalities (i.e., implement the functional requirements correctly), realising modern and more complex software systems involves ensuring that a software is designed, implemented, and deployed in a way that considers the impact it has on users, society, and the environment. This calls for more comprehensive engineering practices for developing software systems with a focus on ethical, social, and environmental considerations, dubbed as responsible software engineering. However, realising this type of systems often involves finding the best or most effective solution among a vast number of possible alternatives and one cannot expect for a software engineer, even the most expert, to be able to manually find all possible opportunities. On the other hand, SBSE provides a framework to systematically explore and evaluate these alternatives, allowing engineers to identify optimal or near-optimal solutions.

In this keynote, I will show how SBSE can be a flexible and powerful mean to produce multiple variants of a software system empowering decision-makers to make informed choices that balance conflicting objectives and that align with their goals and priorities. I will present some recent results from my group and others on the use of SBSE for responsible software engineering and discuss directions for future work towards realising more responsible software systems.

Bio: Federica Sarro is a Professor of Software Engineering in the Department of Computer Science at UCL, where she is the Head of the Software Systems Engineering group and where she has established the SOLAR team within the CREST centre.

Prof. Sarro has extensive academic and industrial expertise in Search-Based Software Engineering, Empirical Software Engineering and Software Analytics, with a focus on automated software management, optimisation, testing and repair.

She has led the international community in the development of predictive modelling for Software Engineering, and led scientific advances in the areas of Search-Based Software Engineering and Empirical Software Engineering. On these topics she has published over 100 peer-reviewed scholarly articles, and given several invited talks at academic and industrial international events. She has also worked in collaboration with several companies including Meta, formerly known as Facebook, Google and Microsoft. Professor Sarro has obtained numerous awards and generous funding for her research. In 2021, she was awarded the Rising Star Award by the IEEE Technical Community on Software Engineering in recognition of her “excellence in Software Engineering research with scholarly and real-world impact”.