  Existing work on the practical impact of software engineering (SE) research
examines industrial relevance rather than adoption of study results, hence the
question of how results have been practically applied remains open. To answer
this and investigate the outcomes of impactful research, we performed a
quantitative and qualitative analysis of 4,354 SE patents citing 1,690 SE
papers published in four leading SE venues between 1975-2017. Moreover, we
conducted a survey on 475 authors of 593 top-cited and awarded publications,
achieving 26% response rate. Overall, researchers have equipped practitioners
with various tools, processes, and methods, and improved many existing
products. SE practice values knowledge-seeking research and is impacted by
diverse cross-disciplinary SE areas. Practitioner-oriented publication venues
appear more impactful than researcher-oriented ones, while industry-related
tracks in conferences could enhance their impact. Some research works did not
reach a wide footprint due to limited funding resources or unfavorable
cost-benefit trade-off of the proposed solutions. The need for higher SE
research funding could be corroborated through a dedicated empirical study. In
general, the assessment of impact is subject to its definition. Therefore,
academia and industry could jointly agree on a formal description to set a
common ground for subsequent research on the topic.
