Without doubt, software is at the center of innovation in the 21st century. Our institute investigates principles and methods for making software development more cost effective, transparent, and reliable. Our covers a wide area: from requirements capture, architecture and design, testing, to maintenance; including software modeling (consistency, traceability, impact of change), product line engineering and variability, requirements engineering, monitoring, and software processes. Automation plays a fundamental role to ensure that software systems engineers have the right tools.