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Computer scientist and CISPA faculty Prof. Dr. Andreas Zeller has been awarded an ERC Proof of Concept Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). The grant, totaling €150,000, enables him to transfer the results of his ERC Advanced Grant project “S3 – Semantics of Software Systems” into practical application. In S3, Zeller is developing an intelligent software agent capable of automatically answering complex maintenance-related questions with high accuracy. The project holds the potential for significant efficiency gains and substantial cost savings in software development.
While AI-based coding assistants like GitHub Copilot already support code creation, a central challenge remains unresolved: Roughly half of the effort in software development is spent on understanding and maintaining existing systems—an area where conventional AI models still fall short. “Maintenance requires a deep understanding of the dynamic behavior of software—and that’s exactly where we come in,” explains Zeller.
As part of his ERC Advanced Grant, which runs until 2028, Zeller and his team have developed innovative testing methods that systematically explore program behavior. These methods are used to train program-specific machine learning models capable of answering questions such as: ‘What input triggers this error message?’ or ‘What configuration causes a particular button to appear?’ “Our models take the entire behavior of a program into account—unlike a large language model like ChatGPT, which can only view code in isolation,” says Zeller.
Virtual expert for real-world systems
The project funded by the Proof of Concept Grant now aims to transfer this approach to complex, real-world software systems. “Our previous research has demonstrated the fundamental feasibility of the approach, but was limited to small examples,” says Zeller. “The key question now is whether these methods can scale to the wide range of functionalities encountered during the execution of a complex program.”
The plan is to develop a demonstrator: an AI agent trained on a large-scale software project that can then serve as a virtual expert on the behavior of that software—across its entire lifecycle. “Training such an AI agent will require substantial computational resources,” Zeller notes, “but it’s still far more cost-effective than a human painstakingly familiarizing themselves with a program.”
Proof of Concept: from fundamental research to practical application
The ERC Proof of Concept funding scheme is exclusively available to researchers who have already received an ERC Grant. It is not intended to continue basic research, but rather to support projects that explore the societal or commercial potential of scientific findings. In Zeller’s case, the primary goal is to develop AI-based tools for software maintenance that could, in the long term, ease the daily workload of developers and help companies worldwide reduce costs. For the internationally renowned expert in automated software analysis, the Proof of Concept Grant marks an important step toward real-world application.
Meet Andreas Zeller
Andreas Zeller is a CISPA faculty and Professor of Software Engineering at Saarland University. His research focuses on the development and analysis of complex software systems. His work has a broad impact on everyday life. For example, techniques developed by Zeller’s research group are used around the clock to secure web browsers like Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, or to detect suspicious Android apps early on. Zeller is an ACM Fellow and a member of the Academia Europaea. In addition to two ERC Advanced Grants, he has received numerous other honors, including the ACM SIGSOFT Outstanding Research Award and the ACM SIGSOFT Influential Educator Award.
About the ERC
The European Research Council (ERC) was established by the European Union in 2007 and is Europe’s leading funding organization for excellent frontier research. It supports creative researchers of any nationality and age in carrying out projects across Europe. The ERC offers four main funding schemes: Starting Grants, Consolidator Grants, Advanced Grants, and Synergy Grants. With its additional Proof of Concept funding line, the ERC helps grantees bridge the gap between groundbreaking research and potential commercialization. The ERC is governed by an independent body, the Scientific Council. Since November 2021, Maria Leptin has served as President of the ERC. The ERC’s total budget for the period from 2021 to 2027 exceeds €16 billion and is part of the EU’s research and innovation program Horizon Europe, overseen by the European Commissioner for Start-ups, Research, and Innovation, Ekaterina Zaharieva.
Project funded by ERC under Horizon Europe
Prof. Dr. Andreas Zeller
Quelle: Tobias Ebelshäuser
Copyright: CISPA
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Prof. Dr. Andreas Zeller
Quelle: Tobias Ebelshäuser
Copyright: CISPA
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