FM 2011: 17TH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON FORMAL METHODS
http://fm2011.lero.ie
June 20-24, 2011
Lero, Limerick, Ireland

FM 2011 is the seventeenth in a series of symposia organized by
Formal Methods Europe, an independent association whose aim is
to stimulate the use of, and research on, formal methods for
software development. The symposia have been notably successful
in bringing together innovators and practitioners in precise
mathematical methods for software and systems development,
industrial users as well as researchers. Submissions are
welcomed in the form of original papers on research and
industrial experience, proposals for workshops and tutorials,
entries for the exhibition of software tools and projects, and
reports on ongoing doctoral work.

The FM 2011 Symposium will be based around the theme
Formal Methods Come of Age

It will have the goal of highlighting and celebrating advances
and maturity in formal methods research, education, and
deployment via tool support and industrial best practice, and
their role in a variety of industries, domains, and in
certification and assurance. FM 2011 particularly welcomes
papers on experience with practical applications of formal
methods in industrial and research settings, experimental
validation of tools and methods as well as construction and
evolution of formal methods tools.

The broad topics of interest for FM 2011 are:

* Formal methods in practice: industrial applications of formal
methods, experience with introducing formal methods in industry,
tool usage reports, experiments with challenge problems.
Authors are encouraged to explain how the use of formal methods
has overcome problems, lead to improvements in design or
provided new insights.

* Tools for formal methods: advances in automated verification and
model-checking, integration of tools, environments for formal
methods, experimental validation of tools. Authors are
encouraged to demonstrate empirically that the new tool or
environment advances the state of the art.

* Role of formal methods in software and systems engineering;
development processes with formal methods, usage guidelines for
formal methods, method integration. Authors are encouraged to
demonstrate that process innovations lead to qualitative or
quantitative improvements.

* Theoretical foundations: all aspects of theory related to
specification, verification, refinement, and static analysis.
Authors are encouraged to explain how their results contribute
to the solution of practical problems with methods or tools.

PAPER SUBMISSION

Papers will be evaluated by the Programme Committee according to
their originality, significance, soundness, quality of
presentation and relevance with respect to the main issues of
the symposium.

There are 2 categories of paper:

* Regular papers not exceeding 15 pages including appendices using
Springer LNCS format. Authors of papers reporting experimental
work are strongly encouraged to make their experimental results
available for use by reviewers.

* Tools papers not exceeding 4 pages should describe the tool and
its contribution. Authors of tools papers should make their tool
available for use by reviewers.

Reviewers will be asked to take account of any available data or
tools in assessing the contribution of the paper. There will be
a short rebuttal phase during which authors may provide a short
response to the reviews of their paper before final decisions
are made.

Accepted papers will be published in the Symposium Proceedings,
to appear in Springer's Lecture Notes in Computer Science.
Submitted papers should have not been submitted elsewhere for
publication, should be in Springer's format.

INDUSTRY DAY

FM 2011 will include an Industry Day that will be dedicated to
sharing experience with using formal methods in industrial
environments. The Industry Day Chairs will solicit presentations
from industry. Abstracts will appear in the Symposium
Proceedings.

WORKSHOPS

We welcome proposals for one-day or one-and-a-half-day workshops
in subjects related to FM 2011. In particular, but not
exclusively, we encourage proposals for workshops on various
application domains.

TUTORIALS

We are soliciting proposals for full-day or half-day tutorials.
The tutorial contents can be selected from a wide range of
topics that reflect the conference themes and provide clear
utility to practitioners. Each proposal will be evaluated on
importance, relevance, timeliness, audience appeal and past
experience and qualification of the instructors.

DOCTORAL SYMPOSIUM

PhD students are invited to submit papers describing their work
(in progress). The authors of the accepted papers will present
their work at the symposium in the presence of the members of an
Examination Committee, who will act as "friendly examiners",
providing detailed feedback. Students whose submissions are
accepted will be able to participate in the Doctoral Symposium.

IMPORTANT DATES

Submission of Technical Papers: January 10th, 2011
Submission of Tutorial and Workshop Proposals: January 24th, 2011
Notification for Technical Papers: March 8th, 2011
Notification for Tutorial and Workshop Proposals: March 22nd, 2011

Information on the format of workshop and tutorial proposals and
on Doctoral Symposium submissions will be made available on the
Symposium website.

GENERAL CHAIR
Mike Hinchey, Lero, Ireland

PC CHAIRS
Michael Butler, University of Southampton, UK
Wolfram Schulte, Microsoft Research, USA

PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
To be finalised

WORKSHOP CHAIRS
Emil Vassev, Lero, Ireland
David Sinclair, Lero, Ireland

TUTORIALS CHAIR
Nico Plat, West Consulting, The Netherlands

INDUSTRY DAY CHAIR
Andrew Butterfield, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

DOCTORAL CHAIR
Norah Power, Lero, Ireland

PUBLICITY CHAIR
Jonathan Bowen, Museophile Limited, UK