Ina Schieferdecker
Software engineering, AI and the digital transformation
Independent researcher and Honorary Professor on Software-Based Innovation at Technische Universität Berlin.
Ina Schieferdecker trained as a mathematical computer scientist and has worked on software engineering since the early 1990s. She works on software engineering and quality assurance, on AI for software engineering and testing, and on digitalisation for sustainability and technological sovereignty.
From 2019 to 2023 she was Director-General for Research for Technological Sovereignty and Innovation at the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Before that she was Co-Director of Fraunhofer FOKUS, Professor at TU Berlin and Co-Founding Director of the Weizenbaum Institute.
She serves on the Executive Board of the Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI) and on the Board of Directors of Informatics Europe. She is a member of acatech and an honorary member of the German Testing Board (GTB). She is on the advisory boards of ifok and the Barkhausen Institut.
Research Areas
AI for Software Engineering and Testing
Taxonomies and literature surveys on AI-augmented software engineering and testing (ai4se, ai4st).
Software Quality and Model-Based Engineering
Testing, conformance, interoperability and certification of distributed and embedded systems, including TTCN-3 and UML Testing Profile standards.
Sustainable Digitalisation and AI
Making digital technologies and AI themselves sustainable, and using them as levers for the transformation towards sustainability.
Technological Sovereignty and Innovation Policy
Research and policy for technological sovereignty and digital innovation.
Responsible Software Engineering
Research software quality and responsible engineering practices.
Urban Data Platforms and Open Data
Smart city concepts, urban data platforms and open data ecosystems.
Selected Publications
- Augmenting software engineering with AI. The ai4se taxonomy and its use. Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering, 2026.
- Navigating the growing field of research on AI for software testing – the taxonomy for AI-augmented software testing and an ontology-driven literature survey. FMICS 2025, LNCS.
- Is Your AI-Based System Five Star Sustainable? LNCS, 2025.
- Technological Sovereignty as Ability, Not Autarky. International Studies Review 25(2), 2023.