Academic and Industrial Software Testing Conferences: Survey and Synergies

Abstract

Just as with any other profession, an efficient way to exchange ideas and networking in software testing are conferences, workshops and similar events. This is true for both professional testers and researchers working in the testing area. However, these two groups usually look for different kinds of events: a tester likes to attend 'industrial' (sometimes called practitioner's or user) conferences, whereas a researcher is more likely interested in 'academic' (in other words scientific or research) conferences. Although there are notable exceptions, this separation is substantial, which hinders a successful academy-industry collaboration, and communication about the demand and supply of research in software testing. This paper reviews 101 conferences: two thirds are academic ones, the rest being industrial. Besides providing this reasonably comprehensive list, we analyze any visible synergies such as events that have a mixed Program Committee and offer a program with elements from both sides. We found only a handful of such events, but these can serve both as opportunities for attendees who wish to extend their perspectives and as models for organizers of future conferences.