The Copenhagen Symposium

Concept

The Copenhagen Symposium on Human-Centered Software Engineering AI is an invitation-only gathering held every year. Supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Carlsberg Foundation., it brings together leading researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to shape how artificial intelligence is adopted in software engineering—always with a strong human-centered focus.

Unlike traditional academic events, the symposium is built on Liberating Structures, a set of facilitation methods designed to make sure every voice is heard and every participant contributes meaningfully. These methods help us move from discussion to concrete outcomes, ensuring that ideas do not remain theoretical but become practical actions.

The symposium serves as a working forum rather than a conventional conference. Through structured, interactive sessions, participants collaborate in small groups, rotate across discussions, and co-create insights. Social activities are woven in to strengthen trust and connection.

Central to the symposium are dedicated workstreams. Each workstream addresses a specific theme or challenge in human-centered AI adoption for software engineering. The workstreams continue beyond the event, maintaining momentum and collaboration across the year.

Key Themes from the First Edition

Transformation of Software Engineering Roles

  • The shift from traditional coding towards managing and collaborating with AI tools.
  • Emerging roles such as AI Contingency Analysts and AI Capability Conductors.

Trust and Ethics in AI Integration

  • The importance of transparency, accountability, and bias recognition in AI systems.
  • Establishing ethical standards that ensure human responsibility remains central.

AI and Team Dynamics

  • How AI changes team structures, workflows, and collaboration patterns.
  • The rise of prompt engineering as a new collaborative skill.

Awareness, Education, and Engagement

  • Extending AI literacy to diverse stakeholders.
  • Standardizing terminology and building shared ethical frameworks.

Future Outlook and Support for Small Companies

  • Short- and long-term implications of generative AI.
  • Opportunities for small firms to benefit from responsible adoption.

The Copenhagen Manifesto

A defining achievement of the first symposium was the Copenhagen Manifesto.
This document reflects our shared commitment to:

  • Responsibility – AI should support human dignity and agency.
  • Transparency – decision-making processes must be open and explainable.
  • Inclusivity – diverse voices and perspectives must be built into AI adoption.
  • Sustainability – AI practices should support long-term wellbeing.

The manifesto has already influenced researchers and practitioners worldwide, serving as a guiding framework for ethical and human-centered AI in software engineering.

Insights from the Second Edition

The second symposium built directly on the Manifesto and turned principles into practice.
40 participants from leading universities, industry, and policy joined at Aalborg University Copenhagen.

Through highly interactive Liberating Structures sessions, we created seven active workstreams that now carry the community forward:

  1. Diversity & Inclusion – making sure AI tools are fair and representative.
  2. Research Standards – creating reproducibility checklists and benchmarks.
  3. Creativity with AI – supporting, not replacing, human imagination.
  4. Personalized Tools – building developer assistants that adapt without intruding.
  5. Measuring Impact – looking at quality, teamwork, and fairness, not just speed.
  6. Explaining AI Clearly – communicating what AI can and cannot do.
  7. Evaluation Guidelines – agreeing on how to test AI in real software projects.

Why Liberating Structures Matter

At the Copenhagen Symposium, Liberating Structures are not an add-on—they are the core of how we work. These methods replace hierarchy with inclusion, giving participants equal space to speak, listen, and contribute.

They allow us to:

  • Break down barriers between senior and junior voices.
  • Encourage unconventional ideas alongside rigorous evidence.
  • Move quickly from discussion to shared commitments.
  • Build lasting connections across disciplines and sectors.

The result is a symposium that is lively, inclusive, and deeply productive—participants leave not only with ideas, but also with a sense of ownership and shared responsibility.

Outcomes from the Copenhagen Symposium on Human-Centered AI in Software Engineering

The Symposium’s purpose is to turn discussion into shared assets: papers, standards, collaborations, and field-building. The items below were reported by past participants as directly sparked, enabled, or substantially advanced by our gatherings.

Peer-reviewed publications and articles

Community standards, resources, and special issues

Convenings and field-building

Courses and institutional initiatives

  • AI Tools for Development at CMU (university course, with materials).
    Course site: https://ai-developer-tools.github.io
  • University-level guidelines for GenAI in SE education and a pilot using Mistral Le Chat as a research assistant (reported by Paris Avgeriou).