A Working Paper was developed (1) to explain the rationale for the cooperation between INCOSE and the ISSS (and other systems organizations), and (2) to establish the inter-dependencies between systems science and systems engineering more broadly.
The connections between systems engineering (SE) and systems science (SS) trace back for decades. Many SE projects now directly involve large-scale social and environmental systems, such as water management, intelligent communities and cities, healthcare, and others in the realm of service systems. The SSWG has begun a dialog with several systems science societies. A memorandum of understanding has been accepted between INCOSE and the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS), and INCOSE has become a member of the International Federation for Systems Research (IFSR). A white paper is being jointly written, describing the shared foundations between SE and SS. Lead author is Gary Metcalf and Duane Hyberston.
The primary intended use of this working paper is to serve as input to a discussion regarding potential joint projects between INCOSE and ISSS that serve to advance the state of the practice of SE and advance the state of knowledge of SS.
There were a number of known issues and questions that were not resolved in this paper. These will be worked on later for a revision of this paper sometime in the future.
See the Final version of the paper below (Final-SS-SE-Synergies-WorkingPaper-R1).