Trends and Needs in Requirements Engineering Research in Ibero-America

Although Requirements Engineering (RE) is a global research area and people from all around the world have contributed to its development, some characteristics distinguish RE research from different regions. For example, North American universities are arguably the main contributors to requirements traceability [4], but not to safety assurance and certification [3]. When referring to research on i* [6], someone would probably associate it to the University of Toronto or the University of Trento, but not to the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne even though its researchers have also significantly contributed to goal-oriented RE (e.g., [5]). These characteristics are indicators of the trends in RE research in different regions. Certain aspects also constrain software development and requirements engineering in specific regions nowadays, such as outsourced software development to India [2] and the safety case regimes in the UK [3]. Other aspects are expected to impact RE research in the near future, such as the introduction of new system and software security regulations in Europe [1]. If these aspects are disregarded, then RE research results will very likely not fulfil the needs in these regions and RE technology transfer will be hindered. We have organised a panel at WER 2015 (18th Workshop on Requirements Engineering) for discussing trends and needs of RE research in Ibero-America. To this end, we aim to answer the following questions: 1. What characteristics in Ibero-America should RE research carefully take into account? 2. What RE topics have been successfully researched in Ibero-America? 3. What RE topics have not been sufficiently researched in Ibero-America? 4. What RE topics should be the main focus of Iberio-American RE research in the future? Three experts will present their opinion on these topics and we expect the panel attendees to also eagerly join the discussion. In addition to the whats, we are strongly interested in knowing why the experts and the attendees consider that certain phenomena have occurred or will occur.