Computer Science and Telecommunications Board & National Research Council 
Scaling Up [PDF ebook] 
A Research Agenda for Software Engineering

Large and growing opportunity costs are resulting from the inability to produce sophisticated, reliable software in a timely manner. Software engineering presents stubborn problems, but in this book, a group of experts suggest several constructive directions for research. Together, they support the need for greater interaction between researchers and practitioners and more aggressive efforts to share and reuse software engineering knowledge.