The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University has received a five-year contract extension, with a face value of $584 million, from the U.S. government through June 2015.

The SEI's contract ensures that the institute will continue to pursue its mission of advancing the practice of software engineering and improving the quality of systems that depend on software. Beginning in the summer of 2009, the U.S. government conducted an extensive review of the SEI, culminating in the recommendation by government reviewers to exercise the option to renew the SEI contract. Previous contract renewals were in 1990, 1995, 2000 and 2005. The 2005 agreement contained an option to extend the contract for five additional years starting in 2010.

"We are pleased to have the opportunity to continue to carry out the SEI's mission," said Paul Nielsen, SEI director and CEO. "Our purpose is to advance the state of the art in software engineering and transition these advancements to the community so that organizations may develop and acquire software that is more reliable, more secure, and more dependable."

Now celebrating its 25th anniversary, the SEI was established in 1984 at Carnegie Mellon as a federally funded research and development center. Through its sponsor, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, the SEI carries out its mission by focusing on software engineering management and technical practices.

Throughout its history, the SEI has defined specific initiatives that address pervasive and significant problems that impede the ability of organizations to acquire, build, and evolve software-intensive systems predictably on time, within expected cost, and with expected functionality.

On deck this week for the SEI is the SEPG Europe 2010, the flagship conference for process professionals being held in Porto, Portugal. SEPG Europe is an annual gathering where the process community comes together to learn, network, and build their skills in process improvement in software and systems engineering as a means to achieving superior performance. The following are SEPG Europe 2010 keynote speakers:

• Linda Northrop, director of the Research, Technology, and System Solutions Program at the Software Engineering Institute where she leads the work in architecture-centric engineering, software product lines, system of systems, and ultra-large-scale systems research.
• Dr. Richard Mark Soley, chairman and chief executive officer of the Object Management Group, Inc. (OMG) and executive director of the SOA Consortium.
• Dr. Ian Sommerville, professor of computer science at St. Andrews University, Scotland, and principal investigator in the UK's Large Scale Complex IT Systems research program.
• Jacqueline (Jacqui) Guichelaar, head of global production services within GT Capital Markets at Deutsche Bank, responsible for global production services across all business lines.

Each SEPG conference offers core professional development in process improvement through technical sessions focused on technologies like CMMI, People CMM, PSP, TSP, Agile, ISO, and Six Sigma; approaches to implementing high maturity; effective acquisition techniques; service development and delivery; and many other processes for improvement.