Guest Editorial Special Issue on Search-Based Software Engineering

It is our pleasure to introduce this Special Issue on Search-Based Software Engineering (SBSE) focusing on the application of evolutionary computation to solve real-world software engineering problems. Evolutionary computation (EC) methods have now become integral part of software engineering. New advancements in EC, such as multi- and many-objective optimization, uncertainty handling for robust and reliable solutions, knowledge discovery and knowledge-augmented EC, dynamic EC, have a great deal of applications in software engineering. Many applications in software engineering have emerged based on the usage of EC for the automation of all phases of the software development process, including the analysis, design, implementation, testing, and maintenance of large software systems. A total of 26 papers were submitted to the Special Issue. Each was subjected to at least three reviews and finally six were accepted for publication as described in the following.