  Context: Requirements engineering process improvement (REPI) approaches have
gained much attention in research and practice. Goal: So far, there is no
comprehensive view on the research in REPI in terms of solutions and current
state of reported evidence. We aims to provide an overview on the existing
solutions, their underlying principles and their research type facets, i.e.
their state of empirical evidence. Method: To this end, we conducted a
systematic mapping study of the REPI publication space. Results: This paper
reports on the first findings regarding research type facets of the
contributions as well as selected methodological principles. We found a strong
focus in the existing research on solution proposals for REPI approaches that
concentrate on normative assessments and benchmarks of the RE activities rather
than on holistic RE improvements according to individual goals of companies.
Conclusions: We conclude, so far, that there is a need to broaden the work and
to investigate more problem-driven REPI which also targets the improvement of
the quality of the underlying RE artefacts, which currently seem out of scope.
