International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE)

International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE)
Name	International Conference on Software Engineering
Abbreviation	ICSE
Discipline	Computer science; Software engineering
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery; IEEE Computer Society
Country	International
First	1975
Frequency	Annual

Contents

International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) ICSE is the premier annual flagship conference for Software engineering research and practice, convening researchers, practitioners, and educators from institutions such as Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Cambridge, and University of Oxford. The conference attracts participants from organizations like Microsoft, Google, IBM, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Inc., and Intel Corporation, and interfaces with venues such as NeurIPS, ACM SIGSOFT, IEEE Computer Society symposia, and the ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Task Force.

History

ICSE began in 1975 amid activity involving groups like ACM, IEEE, SIGSOFT, and influential researchers from Bell Labs and Xerox PARC. Early conferences featured contributors from University of California, Berkeley, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Toronto, University of Washington, and Cornell University. Over time, ICSE mirrored developments in projects at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, and research labs of Sun Microsystems and Hewlett-Packard. The conference evolved alongside milestones such as the rise of Object-oriented programming, Agile software development, and tools from GitHub and Eclipse Foundation, while engaging with policy discussions at forums like W3C and Internet Engineering Task Force.

ICSE covers topics spanning software construction and validation, including work from groups at Princeton University, Yale University, University of Pennsylvania, University of California, San Diego, ETH Zurich, Technical University of Munich, Tsinghua University, Peking University, University of Tokyo, and Seoul National University. Common themes intersect with advances from Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Microsoft Research, and standards from ISO/IEC committees. Research areas include empirical software engineering drawing on datasets from GitLab and Bitbucket, formal methods influenced by Z3 and Coq, program analysis techniques related to LLVM and GCC, automated testing leveraging frameworks like JUnit and Selenium, and human-centered studies related to ACM CHI and ACM SIGCHI. ICSE also embraces emerging topics such as reproducibility promoted by ReproZip, sustainability discussed alongside UNFCCC agendas, and security concerns linked to work at USENIX, Black Hat, and DEF CON.

ICSE is organized by a program committee drawn from institutions such as ICSE Steering Committee, universities including Indiana University, University of Toronto, and industry labs like Bell Labs Research. Steering and local organizing committees have included members affiliated with ACM SIGSOFT, IEEE Computer Society, Montreal hosts, Hyderabad, Beijing, Lisbon, and Zurich local arrangements. Governance practices reflect peer review norms established in venues like SIGPLAN and SIGMOD, with submission systems inspired by EasyChair and CMT and archival policies coordinated with publishers such as ACM and IEEE Xplore.

ICSE proceedings are published through outlets including ACM Digital Library and IEEE Xplore and are indexed by services such as DBLP, Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science. Key artifacts include full papers, short papers, posters, tool demonstrations, and data papers, often archived alongside supplementary materials on platforms like Zenodo and Figshare. Special issues have appeared in journals such as IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, Journal of Systems and Software, and Empirical Software Engineering (Springer). Reproducibility tracks have adopted guidelines related to PROMISE datasets and citation practices promoted by CrossRef and ORCID.

ICSE recognizes excellence with awards named and influenced by figures and institutions like ICSE Award for Contributions to Software Engineering, paper awards connected to ACM SIGSOFT, and influential acknowledgments aligned with Turing Award laureates. Awards honor lifetime achievement, distinguished papers, and influential artifacts, with past recipients drawn from Fred Brooks, Edsger Dijkstra, Niklaus Wirth, Barbara Liskov, Douglas Englebart, Adrian Cockcroft, and researchers from Bell Labs, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, and SRI International.

Notable ICSE editions have featured keynotes from leaders at Microsoft Research such as Tony Hoare associates, innovators from Google Research and Facebook AI Research, and academics from Stanford University, MIT, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Cambridge, and Oxford. Landmark keynote topics have intersected with concepts advanced by Edsger Dijkstra, Donald Knuth, Grace Hopper, and developments associated with UNESCO and European Commission digital research initiatives. ICSE workshops and companion events have linked to proceedings presented at FSE, ASE, ISSTA, ICFP, and PLDI.

ICSE has shaped curricula at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University, and ETH Zurich and influenced industry practices at Microsoft, Google, Amazon Web Services, Apple Inc., IBM Research, and Oracle Corporation. Work presented at ICSE has seeded open-source projects on GitHub and standards in ISO/IEC JTC 1, informed regulatory discussions involving European Commission digital policy, and contributed methods adopted in safety-critical contexts like NASA software projects and European Space Agency missions. The conference continues to bridge academic research at institutions including University of Toronto, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Maryland, College Park, and University of British Columbia with practitioner communities at companies such as Red Hat, Atlassian, Spotify, and Salesforce.