The eight conference on software engineering research and practice in Sweden (SERPS'08) was held in Karlskrona, Sweden, on the 4th-5th of Nov. 2008. The aim with SERPS'08 is to bring researchers and industry practitioners together to discuss software engineering issues, problems, solutions and experiences, not necessarily from a Swedish perspective. During the conference a number of research and industry papers were presented and questions in connection to the presentations were discussed. This paper is a report on the discussions that took place, pointing towards needs and challenges as well as areas of interest in both academia and industry.