25 years of software engineering in Brazil: Beyond an insider's view

The software engineering area is facing a growing number of challenges due to the continuing increase in software size and complexity. The challenges are addressed by the very relevant and high quality publications of the Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering (SBES), in the past 25 editions. This article summarizes the findings from two different mapping studies about these 25 SBES editions. It also reports the results of an expert opinion survey with the most important Brazilian researchers in the software engineering (SE) area. The survey reinforces the findings of the mapping studies. It also provides guidance for future research. In addition, the studies report several findings that confirmed the validity of the research methods applied. All of these findings are important input to the current Brazilian SE scenario. Our findings also suggest that greater attention should be given to the SE area, by improving researchers’ interaction with industry and increasing collaboration between researchers, especially internationally.