8th Workshop on Formal Methods for Industrial Critical Systems

by Thomas Arts and Wan Fokkink

The 8th Workshop on Formal Methods for Industrial Critical Systems (FMICS'03) was co-located with the ERCIM meeting in Røros in Norway, June 5-7, 2003. The FMICS workshops aim to strengthen research on formal methods, and to promote the use of formal methods within industry. This year the workshop attracted over thirty participants.

The fourteen regular contributions to the workshop, which were selected from 25 submissions, dealt in large part with the application of formal methods in industrial case studies. Some notable application areas were smart cards, Java, MPEG and avionic systems. Two invited speakers were present: Reiner Hähnle from Chalmers University of Technology presented a paper entitled 'Integration of Informal and Formal Development of Object-Oriented Safety-Critical Software: A Case Study with the KeY System', and Werner Damm from the University of Oldenburg talked about 'Recent Trends in the Development of Safety-Critical Systems'.

The FMICS workshop series is organised by the ERCIM Working Group on Formal Methods for Industrial Critical Systems. On the occasion of the co-location with the ERCIM spring meetings, ten representatives from ERCIM institutes within this Working Group were invited to present an overview of current research on formal methods in their own research groups.

ERCIM President Gerard van Oortmerssen presents the working group award 2002 to Stefania Gnesi, coordinator of the Working Group on Formal Methods for Industrial Critical Systems.	Simona Orzan proudly shows her best paper award.

As a gesture of involvement, the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology handed out two best paper awards, one being given to Paul Ziemann and Martin Gogolla from the University of Bremen, and one to Stefan Blom and Simona Orzan from CWI.

The FMICS Working Group has managed to achieve a broad public visibility. This good interaction with the wider scientific community was recognised by the ERCIM board of directors, and as a result FMICS was, during the workshop dinner, rewarded with the ERCIM award for the most successful Working Group of 2002.

Link:
FMICS Working Group: http://www.inrialpes.fr/vasy/fmics/index.html