Gamification for Resilience

1 Systems Theory as the Basis for Bridging Science and Practice of Engineering Systems

1.1 Introduction

The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) has suggested that the conceptual and theoretical basis of Systems Theory and Systems Science might offer a vital grounding to advance the discipline of systems engineering. There is a concerted effort under the Future of Systems Engineering (FuSE) initiative to explore the potential contributions that Systems Science might make to the evolution of systems engineering. The INCOSE Vision 2025 states an imperative as “Expanding the theoretical foundation for systems engineering” (Beihoff et al. 2014, p. iv). The vision continues by suggesting that the current state of systems engineering is only weakly connected to underlying theoretical foundations, suggesting that “Systems engineering’s theoretical foundations will advance to better deal with complexity and the global demands of the discipline, forming the basis for systems education as well as the methods and tools used by practicing systems engineers for system architecting, system design and system understanding” (Beihoff et al. 2014, p. 24). In response, several INCOSE-supported activities are targeted to enhance the Systems Science and theoretical foundations for systems engineering (Rousseau and Calvo‐Amodio 2019; Watson 2019).

Arguably, INCOSE’s call for a more robust theoretical grounding of systems engineering is driven by the realization of an increasingly ...