Impact of Software Engineering Research in Practice: A Patent and Author Survey Analysis

Journal Article (2022)
Author(s)

Zoe Kotti (Athens University of Economics and Business)

Gousios Gousios (TU Delft - Software Technology)

D. Spinellis (Athens University of Economics and Business, TU Delft - Software Engineering)

Department
Software Technology
Copyright
© 2022 Zoe Kotti, G. Gousios, D. Spinellis
DOI related publication
https://doi.org/10.1109/TSE.2022.3208210
More Info
expand_more
Publication Year
2022
Language
English
Copyright
© 2022 Zoe Kotti, G. Gousios, D. Spinellis
Department
Software Technology
Issue number
4
Volume number
49
Pages (from-to)
2020-2038
Reuse Rights

Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Abstract

Existing work on the practical impact of software engineering (SE) research examines industrial relevance rather than adoption of study results, hence the question of how results have been practically applied remains open. To answer this and investigate the outcomes of impactful research, we performed a quantitative and qualitative analysis of 4,354 SE patents citing 1,690 SE papers published in four leading SE venues between 1975–2017. Moreover, we conducted a survey on 475 authors of 593 top-cited and awarded publications, achieving 26% response rate. Overall, researchers have equipped practitioners with various tools, processes, and methods, and improved many existing products. SE practice values knowledge-seeking research and is impacted by diverse cross-disciplinary SE areas. Practitioner-oriented publication venues appear more impactful than researcher-oriented ones, while industry-related tracks in conferences could enhance their impact. Some research works did not reach a wide footprint due to limited funding resources or unfavorable cost-benefit trade-off of the proposed solutions. The need for higher SE research funding could be corroborated through a dedicated empirical study. In general, the assessment of impact is subject to its definition. Therefore, academia and industry could jointly agree on a formal description to set a common ground for subsequent research on the topic.

Files

Impact_of_Software_Engineering... (pdf)
(pdf | 1.41 Mb)
- Embargo expired in 08-05-2023
License info not available