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“Software Engineering Research: One of the Most Critical Endeavors for the Digital Society”

–  Open letter published by  Informatics Europe in 2025, co-signed by the  Swiss Informatics Research Association (SIRA) and other leading associations in computer science

The core message of this letter underscores the indispensable role of software in driving innovation across various sectors – from healthcare to finance, transportation, and education – while highlighting the growing challenges posed by our increasingly complex, software-intensive systems. To meet these challenges, software engineering research must advance fundamental principles that ensure security, correctness, reliability, performance, scalability, safety, and sustainability in these systems.

At the Software Engineering Group (SEG), a research group established in 2022 and headed by Prof. Dr. Timo Kehrer at the  Institute of Computer Science at the  University of Bern, we embrace this mission from multiple perspectives, contributing to building the foundations for a sustainable digital future. On an architectural level, even though we work on a broad range of topics, there are a few core ideas that tie our research together:

Problem-oriented. Software development is inherently challenging—especially in real-world settings. Throughout the evolving landscape of modern software engineering, one recurring theme stands out: the tension between the “need for speed” on the one hand and the conservative principle of “never change a running system” on the other hand. A key research question that drives much of our research is why this tension remains so persistent, and where there is room for improvement.

Evidence-based. Theory building and coming up with ideas is fun, and we do a lot of that. Eventually, however, any solid software engineering research needs to be backed up with evidence. That’s why we place strong emphasis on a broad range of empirical research methods, aligning with the standards set by the ACM Special Interest Group on Software Engineering (SIGSOFT). Thanks to all SIGSOFT contributors for collaboratively forming that catalogue!

Technology-open. We have seen many tech trends come and go on the road to more automated software engineering. Right now, it’s Foundation Models providing an exciting opportunity, since software engineering with its highly formalized digital artifacts is one of the most natural use cases for AI-driven automation. We are curious about what these new technologies can do, but also about where they fall short. In general, we are open to any technology, as long as we understand it, and it actually helps without creating bigger problems than it solves.

Interdisciplinary. Software is everywhere, and every domain brings its own challenges and ways of working. It’s always interesting to see how our core ideas on software engineering fundamentals need to adapt or be completely rethought when entering new contexts. We do so in many application domains, ranging from mission-critical software in autonomous cyber-physical systems to scientific workflows or research software in computational sciences.