# Call for Papers

We invite the submission of high-quality papers describing novel and original work in all areas of SBSE including, but not limited to, applications of SBSE to novel problems, theoretical analyses of search algorithms for software engineering, rigorous empirical evaluations of SBSE techniques, and reports of industrial experiences. SSBSE welcomes applications of search-based techniques throughout the software engineering lifecycle. We also invite the application of a broad range of search methods - ranging from exact operational research techniques to nature-inspired algorithms, local search metaheuristics, and simulated annealing. We particularly encourage papers that report on software engineering applications to which SBSE has not been applied before. Research papers must be of up to 15 pages, including all text, figures, references, and appendices.

# Format and submission

Papers must not have been previously published, or be in consideration for, any journal, book, or another conference. Papers will be evaluated by members of the program committee based on their originality, technical soundness, and presentation quality. Submissions must conform to Springer’s LNCS format. Like previous editions of SSBSE, the Research Paper Track will follow a strong double-anonymous reviewing process in which the identity of authors will not be known to the program committee at any time during the process. The papers submitted must not reveal the authors’ identities in any way.

Authors should leave out author names and affiliations from the body of their submission. Authors should ensure that any citation to related work by themselves is written in the third person, that is, " the prior work of XYZ" as opposed to " our prior work". Authors should avoid providing URLs to author-revealing sites (tools, data sets). The paper can mention the existence of such sites, but the visit of such sites should not be needed to conduct the review. You can submit, optionally, a zip file or a pdf file containing supplementary material (raw data, data sets, experiments, etc.), which should also be blinded. The program committee will not necessarily consider it in the paper review process. Authors should anonymize author-revealing company names yet can provide general characteristics of the organizations involved needed to understand the context of the paper. Authors having further questions on double-blind reviewing are encouraged to contact the Program Chairs by email. Papers that do not comply with the double-blind review process will be desk-rejected. If a paper is accepted, at least one author is expected to attend the symposium and present the paper.

Submissions can be made via Easychair (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=ssbse22) by the submission deadline.

# Special issue for best papers

Following the conference, the authors of the best manuscripts will be invited to extend their papers for a special section of SSBSE 2022 at the Information and Software Technology journal. More information about the special section will be announced soon.

The authors of the best manuscripts will be invited to submit an extended version.

# Conference proceedings

Accepted papers will be published in a volume of the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science series (LNCS).

# UKRI Open Access Policy

For the planned Springer Nature conference proceedings later, the License-to-Publish form for the papers accepted will be compatible with the UKRI policy introduced April 1st, 2022. Springer Nature will be pleased to allow UKRI-funded authors of accepted papers the right to make the authors’ Accepted Manuscripts – after acceptance by the conference but before any publisher typesetting / production editing (i.e., not the Version of Record) – available on their own personal, self-maintained website immediately on acceptance, or available for public release on their employer’s internal website or their institutional and / or funder repositories immediately upon acceptance without an embargo period, under a CC BY licence.