CREST: Centre for Research on Evolution, Search and Testing, Platform Grant.

CREST的软件工程方法将基于搜索的优化置于其核心。CREST的理念是，软件工程可以被认为是在一个潜在的巨大搜索空间内寻找高质量的解决方案，同时平衡许多不同的竞争，有时是冲突的目标。我们相信这种哲学在所有的工程学科中都很重要，但在软件工程中它发现了最大的潜力。软件工程中使用的材料和工件非常不同;它们是纯粹的过程和信息，基本上没有物理表现。这使得基于搜索的优化议程特别合适，并提供了自动化的显着优势。该平台提案支持的工作将开发、扩展和传播软件工程中的自动优化议程。

CREST's approach to Software Engineering places search--based optimisation at its heart. The CREST philosophy is that software engineering can be thought of as a search for good quality solutions within a potentially enormous search space, while balancing many different competing, sometimes conflicting, objectives. We believe that this philosophy is important in all engineering disciplines, but it is in Software Engineering where it finds its greatest potential. The materials and artifacts used in software engineering are very different; they are pure processes and information, essentially without physical manifestation. This makes the search--based optimisation agenda particularly apposite and offers the significant advantage of automation. The work supported by this platform proposal will develop, extend and disseminate this agenda of Automated Optimisation in Software Engineering.