Keynote: Professor Kevin Ryan

Abstract

The Republic of Ireland has been a surprising success story in the global software market for reasons which are neither agreed nor obvious. However outsourcing towards lower cost countries is a threat to this success. One potential counter move is to invest heavily in software engineering research so as to stay ahead of the curve. To meet the national strategic need this research needs to be internationally credible but locally applicable. Experience to date has shown that this can be done, but only if the research resources are carefully organised and directed. The lessons learned could be applicable to other small and medium sized countries.

Bibliography

Professor Ryan is the founder and Director of Lero, the National Software Engineering Research Centre of Ireland. Lero is a collaboration of four universities: the University of Limerick, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin and Dublin City University. Lero’s overall goal is to help develop the competence and awareness of software engineering in Irish industry and society.

Prior to becoming Centre Director for Lero, Professor Ryan was Vice President Academic and Registrar of the University of Limerick and founding Dean of the College of Informatics and Electronics. His main research interests are in the general field of software engineering and, in particular, in design methods, programming environments, requirements capture and the software process. He has been involved in a number of significant EU funded projects in the area of software methods and tools, including ToolUse and Atmosphere.

Other research-related activities include membership of the IFIP2.9 WG on Requirements Engineering, conference organisation, notably the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) in 2000, the IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering (ISRE) in 1999 and Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science (AICS) in 1992. He will be Programme Chair for the Requirements Engineering conference in 2009.