Empirical Software Engineering International Week 2026

What an energising and joyful week this has been. The empirical software engineering community means a lot to me and many of us, and it was therefore a privilege to co-chair the Empirical Software Engineering International Week 2026, together with Stefan Wagner and at the TUM research campus in Garching, not far from where we both did our PhDs (arguably quite some time ago…). The preparations were not always easy, but a partnership with not just a colleague but with a friend makes all the difference. We spoke for years how great it would be to host the community for our flagship event and this year this wish turned into reality. We had many wonderful partners in crime without whom this would not have been possible, let alone the changes we aimed at implementing. Among the things that stood out is our new open science policy. ESEM is among the first software engineering conferences that has established such a policy nearly a decade ago and this year, we took the next step by making data availability statements mandatory and by partnering with Dagstuhl LIPIcs as our new publisher. The change was only made possible with the support by the community, the steering committee, and our amazing PC co-chairs Robert Feldt and Maria Paasivaara, next to the contributions by many wonderful colleagues such as Daniel Graziotin, Justus Bogner, or Marvin Muñoz. And the response by the community supported the changes with record numbers of submissions and participants from all over the world.

The week featured an obligatory visit to the Oktoberfest to warm up and get ready for heated discussions before diving into our Annual ISERN Meeting with over 60 participating members. On Wednesday, we then listened to the next generation of empirical SE scholars through our doctoral symposium, and we enjoyed an insightful tutorial on the LLM Guidelines before having two new events introduced this year in the afternoon. In a hackathon, participants replicated studies presented at ESEM and in our fully packed Industry Day, the chairs brought many company partners in the greater Munich area and the community together for presentations and discussions. On Thursday and Friday, we then transitioned into the 20th edition of the International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement, beginning each of the days with a wonderful keynote. Markku Oivo, one of the co-founders of ISERN in 1993 and the community we know today, reflected upon empirical research for AI-native Software Engineering and the implications the new advances have on our community, and Tobias Schimmer provided many insights into AI-native Development for Enterprise Software. The program then featured over 90 paper presentations next to many exciting presentations around registered reports and journal first submissions.
As is also customary to being in Munich, we had many social events that aimed at tasting the various culinary treasures Bavaria has to offer; ranging from a beer tasting in a research brewery to essentially every other type of Bavarian food that would bring everyone through the next winter in the iconic Augustiner Keller.

Overall, a wonderful experience where we gained many new insights, new friendships, and maybe a little bit of extra weight…

It goes without saying that we had a lot of help and we are profoundly thankful to all authors, track chairs, reviewers, organisers of the many co-located events, the great colleagues supporting as student volunteers, and Melissa Lang and Monique Johansson holding everything together. Now, off into a quick hibernation mode before getting mentally ready for the next edition of ESEIW that will be hosted in wonderful Turino, Italy. Godspeed to Marco Torchiano and Maurizio Morisio, we are all very much looking forward to be celebrating the next edition and swap beer for wine!