Industry TrackMSR 2026

Call for Papers

The MSR 2026 Industry Track is the venue to present and learn about the opportunities, challenges, and cutting-edge technology related to using data from software repositories in practice. For a long time, academic researchers in software engineering have been looking to learn and collaborate with practitioners. Our goal for the Industry Track is to be the space for a productive dialogue between software engineering researchers and practitioners, particularly those building tools for other software professionals.

In the fifth edition of the Industry Track, we are looking to minimize the known barriers to industry participation in software engineering research conferences. We invite practitioners to submit an abstract, maximum 1 page long (plus up to 1 page of references), outlining a talk or a poster presentation.

We are soliciting abstracts in two categories:

• Problems: the talk outlines a single problem in an industrial context that could be addressed by using data from software repositories.
• Solutions: the talk reports on a data-driven tool or technique in practice, based on data from software repositories, that the authors have built or are working on.

Submission Format

A one-page PDF file containing the title, speaker names, their industrial affiliations, and the outline of the talk or poster, plus up to one page of references. At the submission stage, we are not requiring any particular template. The authors of accepted submissions may choose to have their abstract published in the conference proceedings, which must conform to the official double-column “ACM Primary Article Template”, which can be obtained from the ACM Proceedings Template page ACM Primary Article Template.

Evaluation Criteria

We will evaluate submissions from practitioners based on relevance and clarity of the description of the problem, solution, or lessons learned along with the context. The submissions should be relevant to the application of data science, machine learning, and/or artificial intelligence to software engineering tools and processes in practice.

Submission

Submissions must be done through HotCRP: https://msr2026-industry.hotcrp.com/

Important Dates

• Paper Deadline: November 23, 2025 AoE
• Author Notification: Monday, January 5, 2026 AoE
• Camera Ready Deadline: Monday, January 23, 2026 AoE

Accepted Papers

• The official publication date is the date the proceedings are made available in the ACM or IEEE Digital Libraries. This date may be up to two weeks prior to the first day of the ICSE 2026. The official publication date affects the deadline for any patent filings related to published work.
• Purchases of additional pages in the proceedings are not allowed.
• Full registration and in-person presentation are required for papers accepted at the conference.

Open Call for Program Committee Members

We invite researchers to nominate or self-nominate for participation in the MSR Industry Track PC. The duties of PC members are to review submissions and participate in the paper discussions. We expect the review load to be light (2 to 3 abstracts per reviewer). The criteria for a nomination are: - A research background such as holding a PhD in a relevant area or at least 3 years of experience in a research-related position. - Currently working in an industry or academic position in the research area, that involves some research aspect. - At least one paper published in a relevant area in a relevant conference.

The program chairs will make a final decision on the nominated members based on the experience of each nominee and the representation of different research areas in the PC. The deadline for a self-nomination is September 1, 2025.