Doctoral Consortium

The ICSE Doctoral Symposium is a forum for mid-level PhD students to present and discuss their software engineering research in a critical but supportive environment. The symposium aims to broaden the perspectives and improve the skills of these students as a way to contribute both to the individuals and also to the broader software engineering research community. Students receive guidance and feedback on various aspects of their research from established researchers and the other student attendees.

The forum is intended for students who have a specific research proposal and some preliminary results, but with sufficient time prior to dissertation completion to benefit from the workshop experience. In addition to feedback on the academic aspects of their work, students will have the opportunity to seek advice on various aspects of completing a PhD and of successfully joining the software engineering research community. The Symposium has the same scope of technical topics as the main ICSE conference.

Apply for participation at the symposium by submitting a research proposal of four pages or fewer in the required ICSE conference format through the online submission site. In addition to your basic contact information (including your adviser's name and email) and the title of your research, successful proposals will generally include a description of the research problem and its importance in the field, a brief survey of background and related work, your expected contributions, how you plan to provide evidence of the value of your contributions, and any results achieved to date.

Successful proposals will generally include:

• a clear, concise statement of the research question or problem and why it is important;
• a discussion of why the question/problem is important, what related work is already published, and how your research will add to that field;
• your expected contributions, and how you plan to provide evidence to underpin those contributions;
• and any results achieved to date.

Students at different stages in their work may address these issues in different ways and in different depth.

A letter of support is not required (as it has been in the past); the committee will communicate with advisers as needed. Student applicants, however, should -- in a brief email message to the symposium co-chairs (with subject "ICSE DS application") -- include several sentences on what they wish to achieve through the Doctoral Symposium.

Proposals can be submitted electronically via CyberChair.

Submissions will be accepted based on criteria including the quality of the research proposal, the quality of the presentation, and the committee's judgment about the potential benefit to the student. In addition, the committee intends to include students that represent a diversity of background, topics, research approaches, and stages of research.

The symposium is a closed forum, open only to the committee and invited students.

David Notkin, University of Washington, US (co-chair)
Marian Petre, The Open University, UK (co-chair)

André van der Hoek, University of California Irvine, US
Christine Julien, University of Texas at Austin, US
Mauro Pezzč, University of Milano Bicocca, IT
Margaret-Anne (Peggy) Storey, University of Victoria, CA
Eleni Stroulia, University of Alberta, CA