Special issue on ´Empirical studies in software engineering´

Empirical Software Engineering is a well-established discipline and a popular practice-oriented research area that focuses on the application of Software Engineering practices in the real context. Empirical Software Engineering research includes the investigation of a wide range of practical software engineering frameworks, methods, tools and techniques. It provides opportunities for both practitioners and researchers to learn through the analysis of industry success and failure cases, and share lessons learnt and practices which worked and which did not work. Empirical Software Engineering researchers contribute to the knowledge body through experience and evidence gathered by observing, directly or indirectly, software engineering organizations, people, practices and projects. The empirical evidence from practice is required to build and test software engineering theories so that Software Engineers may consistently deliver reliable, dependable, and affordable systems.