Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, requirements engineers and software architects have contributed to defining the notion of software sustainability as a quality requirement. Several initiatives have investigated the contribution of certain quality attributes to the dimensions of sustainability, confirming its multidimensional nature (e.g., environmental, social, technical, economic and individual dimensions). However, as software systems operate in dynamic, distributed, and complex environments, software sustainability should be also empirically investigated with respect to its impact in different time scales. Moreover, the inter- and intradependencies among sustainability dimensions must be understood in earlier stages of the software lifecycle for supporting software engineering (SE) activities such as requirements management, software design, software assessment, and software evolution.

In the literature, SE researchers have investigated software sustainability from at least two distinct viewpoints: sustainability in software, and sustainability by software. The first is concerned with the principles, practices, and processes that contribute to software endurability, which has mainly a technical focus. The latter is concerned with the achievement of sustainability goals through the help of software—for example, a software system designed for reducing energy consumption (environmental goal), or a system for preventing technology addiction in teenagers (social and environmental goals).

This Special Issue focuses on engineering both sustainability viewpoints and will contribute to sustainability by developing software products through sustainable processes, methods, techniques, practices, and tools.

We invite in this Special Issue the submission of high-quality papers describing original and significant work in all areas of software engineering for the development of software sustainability.

Dr. Nelly Condori-Fernandez
Prof. Dr. João M. Fernandes
Prof. Dr. Rafael Capilla
Prof. Dr. Patricia Lago
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles (i.e., systematic literature reviews, mapping studies) as well as empirical articles (e.g., experiments, case studies, action research, etc.) are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Requirements management for software sustainability
• Design principles and techniques for software sustainability
• Software sustainability assessment
• Energy-aware software systems
• Sustainable user experience design/assessment
• Metrics and indicators
• Technical Debt
• Visualization of sustainability knowledge (e.g., type of impacts, effects)
• Creating user awareness on sustainability goals
• Data-driven design for sustainable behaviour
• Self-managing systems for optimizing energy/capacity consumption
• Applications and services to promote sustainability
• Techniques, tools, frameworks for developing
  • Persuasive systems for sustainability
  • GIS-based mobile applications for sustainability
  • Serious Games for sustainability
  • Software for ageing
  • Emo-aware software systems for sustainability
  • Robotics software for sustainability