Evolving large software systems is a challenge.

Keeping legacy systems active and relevant is still a really complex task. An aggravating challenge is that some of these systems can never stop (production lines, wafer production systems, auction managers, etc) and need to be updated while running at production sites. In addition, because the production environment is not the same as the development environment, the only way to spot and fix a bug is often by directly accessing software in production, while running. Supporting the evolution of such ever-running systems is an important challenge for our industry because it must deal with more and more changing requirements and the need for dynamic adaptation.

The objectives of EVREF are to study and support the continuous evolution of large software systems in a holistic manner following three main axes: (1) analyses and approaches for migration and evolution of existing (legacy) systems, (2) new tools to support daily evolution, and (3) infrastructure to build language runtimes to support software evolution, new tools, frugal systems, and security language features.

In the context of the first axis, EVREF proposes a specific research agenda with Berger-Levrault R&D.