Towards Agentic Research Problem Engineering: A Vision for Human-AI Collaboration in Software Engineering Research
Resumo
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming Software Engineering through agentic systems capable of collaborating with humans in complex cognitive activities. However, support for research problem formulation remains limited. This Vision paper introduces Research Problem Engineering (RPE) as an emerging engineering discipline and advocates an Agentic Research Problem Engineering (ARPE) perspective, where specialized AI agents collaborate with researchers and practitioners throughout the research problem lifecycle. We present a conceptual architecture, position Lean Research Inception (LRI) and LRI Co-Assistant as initial operationalizations, and outline a research agenda for advancing human-agent collaboration in research problem formulation.
Palavras-chave:
Research Problem Engineering, Artificial Intelligence Agents, Research Problem Formulation, Agentic Software Engineering, Human-Agent Collaboration
Referências
Mamdouh Alenezi. 2026. Rethinking software engineering for agentic ai systems. arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.10599 (2026).
Vahid Garousi, Markus Borg, and Markku Oivo. 2020. Practical relevance of software engineering research: synthesizing the community’s voice. Empirical Software Engineering 25 (2020), 1687–1754.
Victoria Gomes, Delaney Selb, Fabio Palomba, Rodrigo Spinola, and David Lo. 2026. LLM-Assisted Empirical Software Engineering: Systematic Literature Review and Research Agenda. arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.26192 (2026).
Juraj Gottweis, Wei-Hung Weng, Alexander Daryin, Tao Tu, Anil Palepu, Petar Sirkovic, Artiom Myaskovsky, Felix Weissenberger, Keran Rong, Ryutaro Tanno, et al. 2025. Towards an AI co-scientist. preprint arXiv:2502.18864 (2025).
Ahmed EHassan, Hao Li, Dayi Lin, BramAdams, Tse-HsunChen, Yutaro Kashiwa, and Dong Qiu. 2025. Agentic software engineering: Foundational pillars and a research roadmap. arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.06216 (2025).
Junda He, Christoph Treude, and David Lo. 2025. Llm-based multi-agent systems for software engineering: Literature review, vision, and the road ahead. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology 34, 5 (2025), 1–30.
IEEE Computer Society. 2026. Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK Guide), Version 4.0. IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA. [link]
Martin Ivarsson and Tony Gorschek. 2011. A method for evaluating rigor and industrial relevance of technology evaluations. Empirical Software Engineering 16 (2011), 365–395.
Dusica Marijan and Arnaud Gotlieb. 2020. Lessons learned on research co-creation: making industry-academia collaboration work. In 2020 46th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA). IEEE, 272–275.
Anrafel Fernandes Pereira, Maria Teresa Baldassarre, Daniel Mendez, Jürgen Börstler, Nauman bin Ali, Rahul Mohanani, Darja Smite, Stefan Biffl, Rogardt Heldal, Davide Falessi, Daniel Graziotin, and Marcos Kalinowski. 2026. Attributes to Support the Formulation of Practically Relevant Research Problems in Software Engineering. In 3rd International Workshop onMethodological Issues with Empirical Studies in Software Engineering (WSESE@ICESE’26).
Anrafel Fernandes Pereira, Marcos Kalinowski, Maria Teresa Baldassarre, Jürgen Börstler, Nauman bin Ali, and Daniel Mendez. 2025. Towards Lean Research Inception: Assessing Practical Relevance of Formulated Research Problems. In Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE ’25). ACM, Istanbul, Turkiye.
Kai Petersen, Jürgen Börstler, Nauman Bin Ali, and Emelie Engström. 2024. Revisiting the construct and assessment of industrial relevance in software engineering research. In Proceedings of the 1st IEEE/ACM International Workshop on Methodological Issues with Empirical Studies in Software Engineering. 17–20.
Mary Shaw. 2002. What makes good research in software engineering? International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer 4, 1 (2002), 1–7.
Klaas-Jan Stol and Brian Fitzgerald. 2018. The ABC of software engineering research. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) 27, 3 (2018), 1–51.
Davide Taibi, Henry Muccini, Karthik Vaidhyanathan, Marcos Kalinowski, Michele Albano, Antonio Pedro Santos Alves, Renato Cerqueira, Mateus Devino, Matteo Esposito, Rodrigo Falcão, et al. 2026. A research agenda on agents and software engineering: Outcomes from the rio A2SE seminar. arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.11720 (2026).
João Pedro Theodoro, Victoria Cruz de Figueiredo, Anrafel Fernandes Pereira, Wallace Albertini Boquimpani, Mariana Crisostomo Martins, and Marcos Kalinowski. 2026. An AI-Assisted Tool for Practically Relevant Research Problem Formulation in Software Engineering. In 40th Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering (SBES 2026).
Roel J Wieringa. 2014. Design science methodology for information systems and software engineering. Springer.
Vahid Garousi, Markus Borg, and Markku Oivo. 2020. Practical relevance of software engineering research: synthesizing the community’s voice. Empirical Software Engineering 25 (2020), 1687–1754.
Victoria Gomes, Delaney Selb, Fabio Palomba, Rodrigo Spinola, and David Lo. 2026. LLM-Assisted Empirical Software Engineering: Systematic Literature Review and Research Agenda. arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.26192 (2026).
Juraj Gottweis, Wei-Hung Weng, Alexander Daryin, Tao Tu, Anil Palepu, Petar Sirkovic, Artiom Myaskovsky, Felix Weissenberger, Keran Rong, Ryutaro Tanno, et al. 2025. Towards an AI co-scientist. preprint arXiv:2502.18864 (2025).
Ahmed EHassan, Hao Li, Dayi Lin, BramAdams, Tse-HsunChen, Yutaro Kashiwa, and Dong Qiu. 2025. Agentic software engineering: Foundational pillars and a research roadmap. arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.06216 (2025).
Junda He, Christoph Treude, and David Lo. 2025. Llm-based multi-agent systems for software engineering: Literature review, vision, and the road ahead. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology 34, 5 (2025), 1–30.
IEEE Computer Society. 2026. Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK Guide), Version 4.0. IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA. [link]
Martin Ivarsson and Tony Gorschek. 2011. A method for evaluating rigor and industrial relevance of technology evaluations. Empirical Software Engineering 16 (2011), 365–395.
Dusica Marijan and Arnaud Gotlieb. 2020. Lessons learned on research co-creation: making industry-academia collaboration work. In 2020 46th Euromicro Conference on Software Engineering and Advanced Applications (SEAA). IEEE, 272–275.
Anrafel Fernandes Pereira, Maria Teresa Baldassarre, Daniel Mendez, Jürgen Börstler, Nauman bin Ali, Rahul Mohanani, Darja Smite, Stefan Biffl, Rogardt Heldal, Davide Falessi, Daniel Graziotin, and Marcos Kalinowski. 2026. Attributes to Support the Formulation of Practically Relevant Research Problems in Software Engineering. In 3rd International Workshop onMethodological Issues with Empirical Studies in Software Engineering (WSESE@ICESE’26).
Anrafel Fernandes Pereira, Marcos Kalinowski, Maria Teresa Baldassarre, Jürgen Börstler, Nauman bin Ali, and Daniel Mendez. 2025. Towards Lean Research Inception: Assessing Practical Relevance of Formulated Research Problems. In Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE ’25). ACM, Istanbul, Turkiye.
Kai Petersen, Jürgen Börstler, Nauman Bin Ali, and Emelie Engström. 2024. Revisiting the construct and assessment of industrial relevance in software engineering research. In Proceedings of the 1st IEEE/ACM International Workshop on Methodological Issues with Empirical Studies in Software Engineering. 17–20.
Mary Shaw. 2002. What makes good research in software engineering? International Journal on Software Tools for Technology Transfer 4, 1 (2002), 1–7.
Klaas-Jan Stol and Brian Fitzgerald. 2018. The ABC of software engineering research. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology (TOSEM) 27, 3 (2018), 1–51.
Davide Taibi, Henry Muccini, Karthik Vaidhyanathan, Marcos Kalinowski, Michele Albano, Antonio Pedro Santos Alves, Renato Cerqueira, Mateus Devino, Matteo Esposito, Rodrigo Falcão, et al. 2026. A research agenda on agents and software engineering: Outcomes from the rio A2SE seminar. arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.11720 (2026).
João Pedro Theodoro, Victoria Cruz de Figueiredo, Anrafel Fernandes Pereira, Wallace Albertini Boquimpani, Mariana Crisostomo Martins, and Marcos Kalinowski. 2026. An AI-Assisted Tool for Practically Relevant Research Problem Formulation in Software Engineering. In 40th Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering (SBES 2026).
Roel J Wieringa. 2014. Design science methodology for information systems and software engineering. Springer.
Publicado
08/09/2026
Como Citar
PEREIRA, Anrafel Fernandes; TOMAZ, Rafael da Silva; GUENES, Paloma; ALMENTERO, Eduardo Kinder; ARAÚJO, Allysson Allex; KALINOWSKI, Marcos.
Towards Agentic Research Problem Engineering: A Vision for Human-AI Collaboration in Software Engineering Research. In: WORKSHOP EM ENGENHARIA DE SOFTWARE PARA SISTEMAS AGÊNTICOS (SE4AS), 1. , 2026, São Paulo/SP.
Anais [...].
Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Computação,
2026
.
p. 43-46.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/se4as.2026.32352.
