Guest editorial to the special issue on “modeling: foundations and applications” (MODELS 2013)

Since its beginnings, the use of models has always been a core principle in Computer Science. Recently, model-based engineering is gaining rapid popularity across various engineering disciplines. The pervasive use ofmodels as the essential artifacts of the development process, and model-driven development of complex systems, has been strengthened by a focus on executable models and automatic transformations supporting the generation of more refined models and implementations. Software models have become industrially accepted best practices inmany application areas.Domains like automotive systems and avionics, interactive systems, business engineering, games, and Web-based applications commonly apply a tool-supported, model-based, or model-driven approach toward software development. The potential for early validation and verification, coupled with the generation of production code, has shown to cover a large percentage of