==========
ISSRE 2025
==========

October 21-24, 2025
São Paulo, Brazil
https://issre.net


Scope
=====

ISSRE (International Symposium on Software Reliability Engineering) is
the leading conference on software reliability and it focuses on
approaches, techniques, and tools for assessing, predicting, and
improving the reliability, safety, and security of software systems.

IMPORTANT NOTE: ISSRE 2025 is introducing ***Early Decisions***.
At the beginning of the author response period we will notify the
authors with the following outcomes: "Accept" if reviewers do not
require any clarification and are happy with the current state of the
paper; "Reject" if the reviewers agree that the authors’ response is
unlikely to alter their evaluation; "Response Recommended" if
reviewers have explicit questions that clarify some aspects of the
paper, and the decision Accept/Reject is postponed.


Research Track
==============

The research track at ISSRE 2025 invites high-quality submissions of
technical research papers describing original and unpublished results
exploring new scientific ideas, contributing new evidence to
established research directions, or reflecting on practical
experience. Specifically, ISSRE solicits submissions in three
categories: (1) full research regular (REG) papers, (2) practical
experience reports (PER), and (3) tools and artefacts (TAR) papers.

Papers will be assessed with criteria appropriate to each category.

- **REG papers** should describe a novel contribution to the
reliability of software systems. Novelty should be argued via
concrete evidence and appropriate positioning within the state of
the art. REG papers are also expected to clearly explain the
validation process and its limitations.

- **PER papers** should provide an in-depth exposition of practical
experiences ideally performed by a collaboration of researchers and
industry practitioners. The key contribution of these papers should
be lessons learned from the application of known research tools and
methods related to ISSRE topics, or new knowledge acquired through
empirical studies performed according to various research
methodologies. Negative results are welcome, e.g., discussing where
or why current research cannot be applied in an industrially
relevant context.

- **TAR papers** should describe a new tool or artifact. Tool-focused
TAR papers must present either a new tool or novel and substantial
extensions to an existing tool. They should include a description of
(i) the theoretical foundations, (ii) the design and implementation
aspects, and (iii) experiments with realistic case studies. Making
the tool publicly available is strongly encouraged. Artifact-focused
TAR papers should cover (i) a working copy of the software and (ii)
experimental data sets.

The ISSRE conference encourages authors of research papers to follow
the principles of transparency, reproducibility, and replicability.
Authors are encouraged to disclose data to increase reproducibility
and replicability. Should the paper be accepted, the authors will have
the opportunity (and are encouraged to) submit artifacts to the
Artifact Evaluation (AE) track, to enhance the reproducibility and
quality of your research. By submitting your artifacts, you not only
contribute to the progress of our field but also stand a chance to
earn badges that will be displayed on your papers in the conference
proceedings, showcasing the credibility and rigor of your work.

At least one author of every accepted paper is required to make a full
author registration and present at the conference physically in São
Paulo.


Special Issue
=============

Authors of accepted papers will be invited to submit an extended
version of their work to a special issue of the Empirical Software
Engineering (EMSE) journal. The Call for Paper will be available soon.


Important Deadlines
===================
(Anywhere on Earth)


Abstract submission deadline: April 28th, 2025
Paper submission deadline: May 5th, 2025
Early decisions: June 30th, 2025
Author rebuttal period: June 30th-July 5th, 2025
Notification to authors: July 18th, 2025
Camera ready papers: August 19th, 2025


Paper Categories
================

Submissions can be made in one of the following:

- REG papers: 12 pages (including references).
- PER papers: 12 pages (including references).
- TAR papers: 6-10 pages (including references).

Papers that exceed the number of pages for that submission category
will be rejected without review.


Topics of Interest
==================

Topics of interest include development, analysis methods and models
throughout the software development lifecycle, and are not limited to:

- Dependability attributes (i.e., security, safety, maintainability,
survivability, resilience, robustness) impacting software reliability
- Reliability threats, i.e. faults (defects, bugs), errors, failures
- Reliability means (fault prevention, fault removal, fault tolerance,
fault forecasting)
- Software testing and formal methods
- Software fault localization, debugging, root-cause analysis
- Metrics, measurements and threat estimation for reliability
prediction and the interplay with safety/security
- Reliability of autonomous systems and (self-)adaptive systems
- Reliability of AI-based systems, AI for Reliability Engineering
- Reliability of Large Language/Foundational Model (LLM) and
LLM for software reliability
- Reliability of software services and Software as a Service (SaaS)
- Reliability of model-based and auto-generated software
- Reliability of open-source software
- Reliability of software dealing with Big Data
- Reliability of model-based and auto-generated software
- Reliability of green and sustainable systems
- Reliability of mobile systems
- Reliability of software within specific technological spaces (e.g.,
Internet of Things, Cloud, Semantic Web/Web 3.0, Virtualization,
Blockchain, networks softwarization, 5G/6G, edge-to-cloud computing)
- Normative/regulatory/ethical spaces about software reliability
- Societal aspects of software reliability


Anonymizing Rules & Formatting Rules
====================================

Authors shall anonymize their papers.

For a complete description of the guidelines and LaTeX/Word templates:
https://issre.github.io/2025/calls_cfp-research.html


Paper Submission
================

Papers are submitted via EasyChair at the following URL:
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=issre2025

Submissions will be reviewed by the program committee through a
**double-blind reviewing process,** with a limited use of outside
referees. Papers will be held in full confidence during the reviewing
process, but papers accompanied by nondisclosure agreement forms are
not acceptable and will be rejected without review.

Changes in the number and order of authors will not be allowed after
the paper acceptance.

Authors must anonymize their submissions according to the guidelines
given above. Submissions violating the formatting and anonymization
rules will be desk rejected without review. There will be no
extensions for reformatting.


Review Process and Author Response
==================================

After the papers have been reviewed, but before the Program
Committee/Board meeting, the reviews will be made available to the
authors to respond to any factual errors in the reviews. Rebuttals do
not include additional information about the research or a submission
of an updated or revised paper. Author responses will be made
available to all PC/PB members before the paper is discussed for
selection in the PC/PB meeting. The submission website will include
rebuttal guidelines.

***NEW IN 2025: Early Decisions***
To reduce the authors and reviewers burden of unnecessary
writing/reading of authors responses, ISSRE 2025 is introducing early
decisions:

- If reviewers decide that a paper can be accepted in its current
state without requiring any further input from the authors, the
authors will receive an “Accept” decision at the beginning of the
author response period and will not be required to submit a
response.
- If a paper is perceived to be in a highly deficient state by the
reviewers, leading them to conclude that the authors’ response is
unlikely to alter their evaluation, the authors will receive a
“Reject” decision at the beginning of the author response period and
will not be required to submit a response.
- All other papers will receive a “Response Recommended” notification
at the beginning of the author response period. As customary, it is
still up to the authors to decide if they want to submit an author
response.

This approach ensures that author responses are primarily reserved for
cases with some controversy or where the reviewers have specific and
pertinent inquiries to be addressed.


Best Research Paper Award
=========================

ISSRE is pleased to announce the Best Research Paper Award, attributed
every year to the best paper in the Research Track.


Conference Proceedings
======================

The conference proceedings will be published by IEEE Computer Society
Conference Publishing Services (CPS). Papers presented at the
conference will be submitted for inclusion into IEEE Xplore and to all
of the A&I (abstracting and indexing) partners (such as the EI
Compendex).


Organization
============

Research PC Chairs:

- Catia Trubiani
Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI), Italy
https://cs.gssi.it/catia.trubiani/

- Yulei Sui
University of New South Wales, Sydney
https://yuleisui.github.io/

For additional information, the conference website is available at:
https://issre.net/