How Software Engineering Research Overlooks Local Industry: A Smaller Economy Perspective
Klara Borowa, Andrzej Zalewski, Lech Madeyski
TL;DR
The paper analyzes the ICSE FOSE survey from the viewpoint of researchers in a smaller, non-English-dominant economy (Poland) using reflexive thematic analysis to diagnose the persistent research-industry gap in software engineering. It identifies four key themes—Research, Review & Publishing, Community, and Outside Impact—and an overarching theme that this gap is perpetuated by systemic incentives and dissemination barriers. The authors propose a concrete vision to address these issues, including local conference revival, inclusion of small companies, practitioner-accessible diamond open access publishing, AI-focused tracks, and integrating AI into SE teaching. The work provides a practical, community-driven roadmap aimed at strengthening local industry–academic collaborations and reducing the disconnect between research outputs and industrial needs in smaller economies.
Abstract
The software engineering researchers from countries with smaller economies, particularly non-English speaking ones, represent valuable minorities within the software engineering community. As researchers from Poland, we represent such a country. We analyzed the ICSE FOSE (Future of Software Engineering) community survey through reflexive thematic analysis to show our viewpoint on key software community issues. We believe that the main problem is the growing research-industry gap, which particularly impacts smaller communities and small local companies. Based on this analysis and our experiences, we present a set of recommendations for improvements that would enhance software engineering research and industrial collaborations in smaller economies.