INES – National Institute of Science and Technology for Software Engineering
Due to the lack of productivity and quality in software development nowadays, there is urging in applying manufacturing and software engineering techniques, in order to leverage the same benefits found in other engineering fields. This is the actual definition for Software Factories, on which there is a cost-effective assembly process and constant yearning for innovation.
INES (National Institute of Science and Technology for Software Engineering), coordinated by Professor Augusto Sampaio, from UFPE, has as a global theme to promote software development with high productivity by systematically applying the factory philosophy. The developed systems will primarily have, in measurable and configurable ways, a high level of dependability. In special, INES’ initiatives aim at radically diminishing project failure rate, rising satisfaction in product quality, with controlled cost and benefit.
As such, the Institute will state and control the execution of activities with short-, mid- and long-term goals. It will also coordinate contributions from all institutions and research groups in this proposal. In general, researchers’ areas within the Institute incorporate activities such as definition, creation, and deployment of effective software factories, with strong emphases not only in high productivity but also with measurable and controlled dependability.
Specifically, researchers will work on a number of research themes connected to the desired goal:
(a) systematic reuse and software product lines
(b) validation and verification of systems
(c) techniques for software evolution and automatic refactoring
(d) model-driven development
(e) domain-specific languages
(f) software quality
(g) experimental software engineering
INES already has federal (MCT/CNPq/FNDCT/CAPES) and state (FACEPE) official funding around 2,8 millions of Reais to start its activities. Considering those approved projects that foment the Institute creation, the following institutions participate in the initiative as founders institutions:
UFPE (INES headquarters), CESAR and UFRPE (Recife-PE), FACAPE (Petrolina-PE), UFBA (Salvador-BA), UFCG (Campina Grande-PB), UFPB (João Pessoa-PB), UFRN (Natal-RN), e UFS (Aracaju-SE).
This picture depicts another INES peculiarity; all founders’ institutions are from research groups from the Brazilian Northeast. Therefore, INES also contributes to supporting the creation of new scientific research, development, innovation and technology transfer pillars in the Northeast of Brazil.
Moreover, INES originated one of 25 Innovation Institutes created by SENAI/CNI (National Service for Industrial Training/National Confederation of Industry Brazil), the SENAI Innovation Institute for Information Technology and Communication, ISI-TICs.