# Icse Topic Selection > Use when deciding whether a software-engineering project belongs in the ICSE research track or should be routed to FSE, ASE, ISSTA, MSR, ICSME, EMSE/TSE/TOSEM, or an ICSE co-located track such as NIER, SEIP, SEIS, or Demonstrations, based on contribution type, evidence maturity, and audience. - Skill: `thedixitjain/icse-topic-selection` (Agent Skill) - Install (CLI): `npx skillmds add thedixitjain/icse-topic-selection` - Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/thedixitjain/icse-topic-selection/raw - Safety review: pending - Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex - Category: Research & Search - Author: thedixitjain (https://skillmd.com/u/thedixitjain) - Updated: 2026-09-08 - Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/thedixitjain/icse-topic-selection --- # ICSE Topic Selection Decide venue before writing a single section. ICSE — the IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering — is the flagship of the SE research community, which means its reviewer pool expects a contribution *to software engineering knowledge*, evaluated against the four posted criteria of the research track: novelty, rigor, relevance, and verifiability/transparency (ICSE 2027 CFP wording, checked 2026-07-08). A technically excellent paper whose lesson is about databases, PL semantics, or pure ML will be respected and then rejected as out of scope. ## The two-question fit test 1. **Who changes their behavior if this paper is right?** If the answer names software developers, testers, maintainers, reviewers, build engineers, or SE researchers studying them, ICSE is plausible. If the answer names compiler writers, DB implementers, or ML-architecture designers, route elsewhere. 2. **Would an SE empiricist accept the evidence?** ICSE's culture demands evidence proportional to the claim: real subject programs or projects, credible baselines, a threats-to-validity analysis, and (by the open-science policy) an inspectable artifact. A motivating anecdote plus a toy prototype fails the rigor criterion regardless of the idea's quality. ## Contribution shapes ICSE rewards - **Technique + tool + empirical evaluation** — the classic shape: a new analysis, testing, repair, or synthesis technique evaluated on real programs against real baselines (e.g., automated program repair, whose founding ICSE 2009 paper later won the ten-year Most Influential Paper award). - **Empirical study** — quantitative mining, controlled experiments, or qualitative interview/survey work that changes what the community believes about practice. - **Human-factors / developer-experience study** — how practitioners actually use (or refuse) tools, with sound qualitative methodology. - **SE for AI and AI for SE** — testing ML systems, LLM-based SE techniques; the fastest-growing lane, and also the one with the fastest-staling related work. - **Methodology, benchmark, or dataset** contributions when they unlock a research area rather than repackage existing data. ## Routing table | Signal in your project | Better home | Why | |---|---|---| | Idea is promising but evaluation is preliminary | ICSE NIER (4 pages + 1 ref page, requires a "Future Plans" section per the 2027 call) | NIER reviews vision, not completed evidence | | Contribution is a deployed industrial experience | ICSE SEIP | Reviewed on relevance to practice, not research novelty | | Contribution is the tool packaging or a reusable dataset | ICSE Demonstrations / Data Showcase | Purpose-built venue with interactive review | | Societal impact of software is the point | ICSE SEIS | Dedicated reviewer pool | | Testing/analysis is the core, SE framing thin | ISSTA | Deeper testing expertise, same community | | Automation of a development task, systems flavor | ASE | Sibling flagship, tool-centric | | Repository mining is the whole method | MSR | Purpose-built co-located conference | | Maintenance/evolution focus | ICSME | Scope match | | Study too long or too nuanced for 10 pages | EMSE, TSE, TOSEM | No page ceiling, journal-first return path to ICSE | | Already published at TSE/TOSEM/EMSE | ICSE Journal-first (2027 window: journal acceptance between Oct 11, 2025 and Oct 10, 2026) | Presentation slot without re-review; secondary studies excluded | ## Timing reality for the current cycle The ICSE 2027 research-track deadline (abstract June 23, submission June 30, 2026, AoE) has already passed as of 2026-07-08, and the 2027 call posts a **single submission cycle** — a departure from the two-cycle model ICSE ran in 2025 and 2026. So "just aim for the next ICSE window" now means roughly a year of waiting. That makes routing honesty cheaper than it used to be: FSE, ASE, ISSTA, and the journals all have nearer deadlines, and a journal-first acceptance can still put you on the Dublin stage. ## Evidence-maturity ladder Fit is necessary but not sufficient; the same idea belongs at different ICSE doors depending on how far the evidence has come. Grade honestly: | Maturity rung | You have... | Right door now | |---|---|---| | Insight | An observation and an argument, no system or study yet | Workshop or NIER; write the "Future Plans" section the NIER call requires | | Prototype | A working technique, evaluated on examples you chose | NIER, or hold one cycle and build the real evaluation | | Evidence | Real subjects, credible baselines, statistics, threats analysis, artifact | Research track — the four criteria are all satisfiable | | Deployment | Adoption data from practice, weaker research novelty | SEIP, whose reviewers weigh practice lessons over novelty | | Archive-grade depth | More study than 10 pages can hold | TSE/TOSEM/EMSE first, then journal-first back to the ICSE stage | The costly mismatch is submitting one rung early: research-track reviewers reject prototypes politely ("promising, but..."), and the year lost to a single-cycle calendar is the real price. One rung of patience is usually one rung of acceptance probability. ## Anti-patterns that predict rejection - **Venue shopping downward**: a paper rejected from a PL or ML venue, resubmitted to ICSE without re-framing for the SE audience. Reviewers detect the foreign citation graph immediately. - **Solution looking for a problem**: no evidence any practitioner or researcher has the pain the tool cures — fails the relevance criterion. - **Benchmark-only novelty**: a known technique run on a new dataset with no new question answered. - **Scope camouflage**: renaming an ML contribution "SE for AI" without any engineering question. Ask: if the model were swapped, would the SE lesson survive? ## Reading the room before committing Two cheap reconnaissance moves sharpen the verdict. First, scan the last two editions' accepted-paper titles (ICSE program pages, dblp) for your exact subarea: three or more recent acceptances means a reviewer pool exists; zero may mean either an opening or a scope mismatch — the exemplars in `resources/exemplars/library.md` help tell which. Second, check where the papers you cite most were published: if your own bibliography is majority non-SE venues, ICSE reviewers will experience your paper as a visitor, and the introduction must do extra naturalization work before the fit test passes. ## Decision procedure ```text [Audience] who acts differently if the claim is true? -> SE actors? yes/no [Claim type] technique / empirical / human-factors / benchmark / methodology [Evidence maturity] complete + real subjects? -> full track promising + partial? -> NIER or workshop industrial + deployed? -> SEIP [Deadline math] next ICSE window vs FSE/ASE/ISSTA/journal calendars [Verdict] ICSE research track / co-located track / sibling venue + one-line reason ``` Run this before the writing skills; a wrong venue decision wastes every later step. When the verdict is ICSE, continue with `icse-workflow` for the calendar and `icse-writing-style` for the paper shape. --- **Source:** [`brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills`](https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills) → `ICSE-Skills/skills/icse-topic-selection/SKILL.md`