International Software Architecture PhD School 2020

This school has been rescheduled to 14 - 18 June 2021

The Software Architecture field is supported by an established scientific and industrial community that regularly meets in the context of three key international software architecture conferences (ICSA, ECSA, SATURN). Research in Software Architecture is thriving as witnessed by the increasing number of publications in the field, as well as by the funding received by national and international programmes. The field also plays a prominent role in broader Software Engineering conferences (like ICSE) and journals (like IEEE Software and Elsevier Journal of Systems and Software). Finally, the field has received very high recognition in the software-intensive systems industry, where often the role of software architect is the highest technical position. The only element of the discipline that needs further development is the training of graduate and PhD students as well as practicing architects in state-of-the-art academic and industrial theories and technologies. This gap is being covered by the International Software Architecture PhD School (iSAPS). This year the school is already in its fourth edition, having three well-attended editions in the past years, that have helped improve and refine its format to better serve the needs of all stakeholders (researchers, architects and lecturers).

iSAPS provides young researchers and practicing architects from the industry, the opportunity to learn from the leaders in the field. The school will train the participants in the most recent methods, tools, and theories that are being produced in the top research groups and industrial environments. The format will combine lectures on cutting-edge topics with hands-on sessions on industrial cases. The participants will work on the cases from the point of view of their own research (students) and practice (architects) in break-out groups in order to put the theoretical knowledge into practice. The output of this hands-on work will consist of innovative solutions to technical problems and a research agenda to elaborate on complex problems in the long term. The PhD students will get the opportunity to work on real industrial problems, while practicing architects will enrich their knowledge with state-of-the-art theories. We also expect new collaborations between research groups and the corresponding organizations from the private and public sector. After the school, we plan to publish a technical report including the summaries of the cases and lessons learned.

Overall the International Software Architecture PhD School serves the following purposes: (1) it fills the current gap in Software Architecture research training, (2) it combines outstanding lecturers from both academia and industry; and (3) it brings together academics and practicing architects to discuss the most challenging and timely Software Architecture topics and establish future collaborations.