This award is presented to an individual or individuals who have made significant and lasting research contributions to the theory or practice of software engineering.
The award recipients share a $1000 honorarium, and each recipient receives a plaque engraved with their name and signed by the chair of SIGSOFT. The award is announced by the SIGSOFT chair at ICSE during ICSE's award presentation session. The award recipients are invited to give a keynote presentation at the ICSE conference in the year in which the award is made. Each award recipient also receives travel support up to $2500 within their home continent and up to $3000 outside their home continent, including airfare, hotel, and conference registration to attend the ICSE conference.
The selection committee solicits nominations from the software engineering community in a variety of ways including announcements in SIGSOFT's newsletter, Software Engineering Notes, and postings on appropriate newsgroups and websites. The committee considers all external nominations in the context of the nominees' research contributions to software engineering. The selection committee shall also have the option to decline to make an award in a given year, if no suitable nominations are presented.
To submit a nomination for the award, please use the awards nomination portal. Nominations are due no later than January 15 of each year. Among other details, the nominator needs to submit the following through the portal:
The nominator also needs to upload up to 3 support letters (200-300 words will be sufficient for each support letter, although longer statements of support are of course welcome). Each support letter must include the following sentence: "To the best of my knowledge, the candidate I am endorsing has not committed any action that violates the ACM Code of Ethics and ACM's Core Values."
If you have questions about this award, please contact sigsoft-research-award (at) acm (dot) org.
| 2021 | Prem Devanbu, UC Davis, for profoundly changing the way researchers think about software by exploring connections between source code and natural language |
| 2020 | Michael Ernst |
| 2019 | Mark Harman |
| 2018 | Andreas Zeller |
| 2017 | Daniel Jackson |
| 2016 | James Herbsleb |
| 2015 | Carlo Ghezzi |
| 2014 | Alexander Wolf |
| 2013 | David Notkin |
| 2012 | Lori Clarke |
| 2011 | David Garlan and Mary Shaw |
| 2010 | Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson and John Vlissides (posthumously) |
| 2009 | Richard N. Taylor |
| 2008 | Axel van Lamsweerde |
| 2007 | Elaine J. Weyuker |
| 2006 | David Harel |
| 2005 | Jeff Kramer and Jeff Magee |
| 2004 | Nancy Leveson |
| 2003 | Leon J. Osterweil |
| 2002 | Gerard Holzmann |
| 2001 | Michael Jackson |
| 2000 | Victor Basili |
| 1999 | Harlan Mills (one-time posthumous) |
| 1999 | Niklaus Wirth |
| 1998 | David Parnas |
| 1997 | Barry Boehm |