Objective

The original research goal of Devise was to increase productivity and quality in the development of large, complex systems. Development of large, complex systems is an expensive task, which involves a number of skills that traditionally have been covered by different research areas. The available tools, techniques and methods for the various aspects of system development lack integration and have limitations. Devise was based on three research groups representing complementary areas within system development. The idea was that by combining the efforts of research areas, it would be possible to improve quality and efficiency in development of large complex systems.

The research areas of Devise has expanded from experimental system development to cover new areas and currently the following areas are covered:

• System development with main focus upon participatory design, rapid prototyping, and object-oriented methodologies.
• Object technology with main focus upon programming language design (the BETA language), development of tools, distribution, persistence and databases.
• Design, specification and validation based on Coloured Petri Nets.
• Human computer interaction with focus upon usability, computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), hypermedia, and multi-media.

This goal of Devise is being realised through a range of activities taking place in a constant interplay. These activities include: development of methods, techniques and tools. In addition methods, techniques and tools are experimentally tested through projects with external organizations, including industry.

Devise was originally based on grants from the Danish Research Programme on Informatics (5.26.18.18) and from the European Union through the Esprit projects EuroCoOp (5303) and EuroCODE (6155).

Currently a number of Devise projects are sponsored by the Danish National Centre for IT Research.