{"id":23229,"date":"2025-07-15T14:26:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-15T12:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saarland-informatics-campus.de\/?post_type=sic_news&#038;p=23229"},"modified":"2025-07-15T14:35:35","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T12:35:35","slug":"informatiker-andreas-zeller-erhalt-erc-proof-of-concept-grant-fur-projekt-zur-ki-gestutzten-software","status":"publish","type":"sic_news","link":"https:\/\/saarland-informatics-campus.de\/en\/piece-of-news\/informatiker-andreas-zeller-erhalt-erc-proof-of-concept-grant-fur-projekt-zur-ki-gestutzten-software\/","title":{"rendered":"CISPA researcher Andreas Zeller awarded ERC Proof of Concept Grant for project on AI-powered software maintenance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>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 \u20ac150,000, enables him to transfer the results of his ERC Advanced Grant project \u201cS3 \u2013 Semantics of Software Systems\u201d 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.<\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"news-text-wrap\">\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>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\u2014an area where conventional AI models still fall short. \u201cMaintenance requires a deep understanding of the dynamic behavior of software\u2014and that\u2019s exactly where we come in,\u201d explains Zeller.<\/p>\n<p>As part of his <a href=\"https:\/\/cispa.de\/en\/erc-proof-of-concept-zeller\">ERC Advanced Grant<\/a>, 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: \u2018What input triggers this error message?\u2019 or \u2018What configuration causes a particular button to appear?\u2019 \u201cOur models take the entire behavior of a program into account\u2014unlike a large language model like ChatGPT, which can only view code in isolation,\u201d says Zeller.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Virtual expert for real-world systems<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The project funded by the Proof of Concept Grant now aims to transfer this approach to complex, real-world software systems. \u201cOur previous research has demonstrated the fundamental feasibility of the approach, but was limited to small examples,\u201d says Zeller. \u201cThe key question now is whether these methods can scale to the wide range of functionalities encountered during the execution of a complex program.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>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\u2014across its entire lifecycle. \u201cTraining such an AI agent will require substantial computational resources,\u201d Zeller notes, \u201cbut it\u2019s still far more cost-effective than a human painstakingly familiarizing themselves with a program.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Proof of Concept: from fundamental research to practical application<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Meet Andreas Zeller<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<p>Further information and source: <a href=\"https:\/\/cispa.de\/en\/erc-proof-of-concept-zeller\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Press release of the Helmholtz Center for Information Security (CISPA)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 &euro;150,000, enables him to transfer the results of his ERC Advanced Grant project &ldquo;S3 &ndash; Semantics of Software Systems&rdquo; into practical application. In S3, Zeller is developing an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22969,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":""},"sic_news-types":[53,101,60],"class_list":["post-23229","sic_news","type-sic_news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","sic_news-types-cispa-en","sic_news-types-highlight-en-2","sic_news-types-uds-en"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>CISPA researcher Andreas Zeller awarded ERC Proof of Concept Grant for project on AI-powered software maintenance - Saarland Informatics Campus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/saarland-informatics-campus.de\/en\/piece-of-news\/informatiker-andreas-zeller-erhalt-erc-proof-of-concept-grant-fur-projekt-zur-ki-gestutzten-software\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"CISPA researcher Andreas Zeller awarded ERC Proof of Concept Grant for project on AI-powered software maintenance - Saarland Informatics Campus\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Computer scientist and CISPA faculty Prof. Dr. Andreas Zeller has been awarded an ERC Proof of Concept Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). 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