__________________________ ___ ___ ___
Call for Papers
__________________________ ___ ___ ___

The 29th International Working Conference on Requirement Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality (REFSQ 2023)
April 17-20, 2023
In Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain
Web: https://2023.refsq.org/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/WC_REFSQ
__________________________ ___ ___ ___
Important Dates
__________________________ ___ ___ ___
Abstract Submission (Research Papers): 11 November, 2022 AoE (UTC-12h)
Full Paper Submission (Research Papers): 18 November, 2002 AoE (UTC-12h)
Notification to authors (Research Papers): 20 January, 2023 AoE (UTC-12h)
Conference: April 17-20, 2023
__________________________ ___ ___ ___
About REFSQ
__________________________ ___ ___ ___
The REFSQ working conference is the leading European conference series on requirements engineering (RE). It is the goal of REFSQ to foster the creation of a strong European RE community across industry and academia. Since 1994, Requirements Engineering continued to be a dominant factor influencing the quality of software, systems and services. REFSQ seeks contributions which report on novel ideas and techniques that enhance the quality of RE’s products and processes, as well as reflections on current research. REFSQ has a long tradition of being a highly structured and interactive forum. In addition to the high-quality scientific program, REFSQ also features a highly interactive Industry Track, Workshops, Posters and Tool demos, Doctoral Symposium and a Journal First Track.
__________________________ ___ ___ ___
Main Topic and Scope
__________________________ ___ ___ ___
The special theme for this year’s REFSQ is “Human Values in RE”.
RE is at the boundary of humans and technology, and values play a crucial role in the interplay between developers, users and systems. When developing technology, we get to be cognizant of how our values inform our designs, because we unconsciously embed them into our systems. In addition, we need to carefully consider possible conflicts between human values and business value. The theme of this year thus aims to foster discussion around the following questions:
How do we take care of human values in RE?
How do we ensure that the systems we design incorporate the values we want them to stand for?
How do we validate and measure values?
How do we make sure that systems serve the human as opposed to having the human adapt to them?
How much do developer habits and characteristics influence their designs?
What is the interplay between developer and stakeholders’ values?
What is the interplay between human values and business value?
As a tradition in REFSQ, the best papers will be invited to a journal special issue.
__________________________ ___ ___ ___
Submission Types
__________________________ ___ ___ ___
We invite original submissions in the following categories:

Technical design papers (15 pages incl. references) describe the design of new artifacts, i.e., novel solutions for requirements-related problems or significant improvements of existing solutions.

Scientific evaluation papers (15 pages incl. references) investigate existing real-world problems, evaluate existing real-world implemented artifacts, or validate newly designed artifacts, e.g., by means such as case studies, experiments, simulation, surveys, systematic literature reviews, mapping studies, or action research.

(NEW this year) Experience report papers (12 pages incl. references) describe retrospective reports on practical experiences in applying RE techniques in practice, or addressing RE problems in real-world contexts. These papers focus on reporting the experience in a narrative form, and give prominence to the lessons learned by the authors.

Vision papers (8 pages incl. references) state where research in the field should be heading.

Research previews (8 pages incl. references) describe well-defined research ideas at an early stage of investigation which may not be fully developed.
__________________________ ___ ___ ___
Review and Publication
__________________________ ___ ___ ___
Contributions must be submitted to: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=refsq2023
Each submission in the scope of REFSQ will undergo a single-blind review process that will involve at least three members of the program committee.
The REFSQ 2023 proceedings will be published in Springer’s LNCS series. We are planning a special section with a journal for the best papers.
__________________________ ___ ___ ___
Formatting
__________________________ ___ ___ ___
All submissions must be formatted according to the Springer LNCS/LNBIP conference proceedings template (for LaTeX and Word): https://www.springer.com/gp/computer-science/lncs/conference-proceedings-guidelines. As per the guidelines, please remember to include keywords after your abstract.
Furthermore, to facilitate accurate bidding and a better understanding of the papers, each paper submitted to REFSQ 2023 is required to have a structured abstract. The imposed structure demands each abstract have exactly 4 paragraphs with the following content:
Context and motivation: Situate and motivate your research.
Question/problem: Formulate the specific question/problem addressed by the paper.
Principal ideas/results: Summarize the ideas and results described in your paper. State, where appropriate, your research approach and methodology.
Contribution: State the main contribution of your paper. What’s the value you add (to theory, to practice, or to whatever you think that the paper adds value). Also, state the limitations of your results.
__________________________ ___ ___ ___
Organizing Committee
__________________________ ___ ___ ___
Program Co-Chairs:
-Alessio Ferrari, CNR-ISTI, Italy
-Birgit Penzenstadler, Chalmers, Sweden
Industry Track Co-Chairs:
-Joan Antoni Pastor, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
-Krzysztof Wnuk, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden
Local Organization Co-Chairs:
-Carles Farré, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
-Carme Quer. Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
Background Organization Chair:
-Xavier Franch, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
Workshops Co-Chairs:
-Irit Hadar, University of Haifa, Israel
-Shola Oyedeji, LUT University, Finland
Journal First Co-Chairs:
-Daniel Amyot, University of Ottawa, Canada
-Paola Spoletini, Kennesaw State University, USA
Posters and Tools Co-Chairs:
-Sallam Abualhaija, University of Luxembourg
-Oliver Karras, TIB - Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology, Germany
Doctoral Symposium Co-Chairs:
-Fabiano Dalpiaz, Utrecht University, Netherlands
-Ana Moreira, NOVA University of Lisbon and NOVA LINCS, Portugal
Social Media and Publicity Co-Chairs:
-Muhammad Abbas, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden AB, Sweden
-Silverio Martínez-Fernández, UPC-BarcelonaTech, Spain
Web Chair:
-Quim Motger, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
Student Volunteer Chair:
-Claudia Ayala, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
Proceedings Chair:
-Giorgio Spagnolo, ISTI-CNR, Italy
__________________________ ___ ___ ___