Retrospective and Prospective Views on Information Systems Engineering: Contributions in Honor of Barbara Pernici on the Occasion of Her Retirement

It is difficult to precisely define Information Systems Engineering. Roughly speaking, it is an interdisciplinary field focusing on designing, developing, implementing, and managing complex IT systems that meet specific organizational needs, bridging the gap between technology and business by applying engineering principles to create efficient, reliable solutions for data processing, decision-making, and operations, integrating software, hardware, data, processes and people. It emphasizes understanding business requirements, managing databases, ensuring system security, and creating holistic solutions that integrate various technologies for effective problem-solving. 

This collection of selected papers provides a comprehensive and extremely readable overview of what constitutes Information Systems Engineering and presents retrospective and prospective views on making it increasingly relevant in our society. It covers topics including information systems design; how to articulate research in Information Systems Engineering; the management of time in processes; the management of data quality, both on the Web and in social contexts, and its impact on the AI applications; the servitization of systems and their adaptiveness; the evolution of business process management; cybersecurity; sustainability and energy management in information systems; and the concept of sovereignty in the AI era. Overall, this book is a source of inspiration for everybody working on the vision of creating a strong, fruitful and creative community of information systems engineers.

With this book, the editors and authors wish to honor Prof. Barbara Pernici for her enormous and ongoing contributions to the discipline of Information Systems Engineering. It was presented to her on the occasion of her retirement, celebrated during CAiSE 2026 in Verona; CAiSE being a conference that she has contributed to and supported for over 30 years. Thank you very much to Barbara for so many years of inspiration, cooperation, and friendship.

Cinzia Cappiello is an associate professor at Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Her research focuses on data and information quality, data architectures and management. She contributed to the assessment and improvement of data quality across Big Data, crowdsourcing, service-based, and Web applications, as well as streaming data. Currently, her research is focused on data preparation and data-centric AI. She obtained her PhD under Barbara’s supervision and continues to collaborate with her on various research projects.

Marco Comuzzi is an associate professor at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology, in Korea. His research focuses on process mining and blockchain systems, most recently concentrating on how large language models help improve and extend process mining functionality. Marco obtained a PhD in information technology under Barbara’s supervision in 2007, on the topic of quality negotiation in service-oriented systems.

Massimo Mecella is a professor at Sapienza Università di Roma, Italy. His main research interests include information systems engineering, software and service engineering, business process management, application of AI to smart environments (smart factories, smart buildings, space). Recently, he coedited the book on Engineering Information Systems with Large Language Models. Massimo has taken inspiration and collaborated with Barbara Pernici since the time of his PhD.

Pierluigi Plebani is an associate professor at Politecnico di Milano, Italy. His research interests include information systems engineering with particular emphasis on multi-party business process monitoring and compliance, as well as on computational data governance in federated settings. He obtained his PhD under Barbara’s supervision and has since maintained a collaborative relationship with her on diverse research projects within the field of information systems engineering.

Monica Vitali is an associate professor at Politecnico di Milano, Italy. Her research interests include adaptive information systems, data management in heterogeneous infrastructures, and energy-aware information systems management. She obtained her PhD in 2014 under Barbara’s supervision, and she has been collaborating with her and her group since then.