Early Stage Research and Development (ESR&D) is one of the most crucial phases in the design process. It is of interest to Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs), university affiliated Research and Development (R&D) centers, government entities, and public and private commercial enterprises. This paper explores the topics of whether and when to apply systems engineering (SE) in ESR&D projects, how much SE to apply and how to make that determination, and barriers to implementation with advice on how to overcome them. The authors conclude that applying SE in the early stages of R&D projects is a necessary element of the overall risk management strategy, but that the SE effort must be appropriately tailored to balance investment with value while supporting scalability for future growth.

Early Systems Research and Development (ESR&D) is one of the most crucial phases in the product development process. It both blends and blurs the lines between science and engineering, and requires a risk‐based, disciplined, and graded approach to effectively manage scope, cost, and complexity of the final product. Many leaders, program managers, and scientists are unwilling to involve systems engineering because of the perception that systems engineering is heavily process oriented, adds unnecessary costs, and should be applied only to mature technologies. The value of systems engineering as applied to ESR&D is unclear to these key individuals. The unfortunate result is that system engineering is not applied to ESR&D. This results in R&D efforts that may have solved the wrong problem, selected the wrong architecture, require technical rework, have difficulty transitioning later maturity levels, and result in higher R&D costs and extended development timelines. This article discusses the difficulty of introducing systems engineering to the research and early development process and their inclination perspectives of researchers, engineers, and managers. The article shall offer potential means to manage the cultural transformation of early adoption of right‐sized systems engineering in ESR&D and reverse the attitudinal positions.