The globalization of software development is pervasive in today's IT and software industry. The diversity of culture and communication and the dispersion over time and space require novel techniques, tools, and practices from many disciplines to overcome numerous difficulties and to take advantage of rare opportunities such environments entail.

The 4^th International Conference on Global Software Engineering will bring together researchers and practitioners interested in exploring how globally distributed teams work and how the challenges can be met. The previous conferences attracted a wide audience from industry and academia.  The ICGSE 2009 organizing committee invites you to contribute, actively participate and reap the benefits from the renowned expertise of this international global software engineering community. Conference attendees will get an opportunity to explore the current state of the art in this area as well as new thoughts and trends that will shape the future.

ICGSE 2009 will be held at the University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland and will be hosted by Lero - the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre.  General Chair for the conference is Dr. Ita Richardson, Lero.