Sponsors: NSF, Bell Communications Research, Dynamix, Mentor Graphics, NORTEL, GTE Government Systems, Northrop-Grumman (Rolling Meadows), Northrop-Grumman (Melbourne), Army Research Lab Software Technology Branch
The Purdue University/University of Florida/University of Oregon Software Engineering Research Center (SERC) is part of the National Science Foundation's Industry/University Cooperative Research Center program. SERC is devoted to software technology, more specifically, investigating the development and assessment of tools and methods for improving productivity and software quality throughout the life cycle. The SERC research program has been structured to improve the management of the software engineering process, the productivity of software engineers, and the quality of software engineering products. SERC began operation in October, 1986. A five-year grant totalling $500,000 was awarded by NSF to establish the Center. This is supplemented by annual membership fees of at least $30,000 per sponsoring-affiliate. These sponsors benefit via direct involvement in a highly leveraged, sponsor-guided research program; early access to research results applicable to sponsor needs; early contact with a new source of software engineers/researchers; technology transfer via personnel exchange programs, and seminars, talks, and short courses; opportunities to influence directions in software engineering educational developments; a world-wide window on new software engineering technology; and additional specific research under separate "contracts." The director of SERC is Professor Aditya P. Mathur from Purdue University. VSERC, Virtual SERC, is the WEB presence of SERC (http://www.cs.purdue.edu/serc). It allows affiliates and researchers to effectively communicate with each other. VSERC is under continual improvement through an award from NSF. Its current version is now available for public distribution.