Formal methods emerged as a disciple area in computer science and software engineering half a century ago. An international community is formed researching, developing and teaching formal theories, techniques and tools for software modeling, specification, design and verification.

However, the impact of the theories, techniques and tools on the improvement of qualities of the daily used software systems is far from being convincing to software engineering practitioners. The gap between the development of formal methods and the advances in software technologies is not being seen becoming narrower. More precisely, the relation between formal methods and software technologies is not clearly understood.

This is clearly reflected by the challenges in application of formal techniques and tool in engineering large-scale systems with multi-dimensional complexities. Large systems include Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), Networks of Things, Enterprise Systems, Cloud-Based Systems, etc.

This background is the motivation of this Symposium on Foundations, Practice and Trends in Formal Software Engineering Methods. The theme of the symposium is to promote research sharing, exchange of ideas and discussions on

• Theories, techniques, tools and their applications, the understanding on their impacts, weakness and what practical problems in software design they can solve effectively.
• Relations and common foundations of difference theoretical frameworks and their techniques so as to scale up their application to handle complex system design and verification;
• "Big and bold" ideas about how to make it more relevant to engineering practitioners by advancing formal methods research and development and improving education;
• Research and experiments on domain specific applications of formal techniques and tools.