International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE)

The International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE; pronounced in-co-see) is a not-for-profit membership organization and professional society in the field of Systems engineering. INCOSE has about 17000 members including individual members, corporate members and student members. INCOSE’s main activities include its conferences, publications, local chapters, certifications and technical working groups.

The INCOSE International Symposium is generally held in July in the United States or another country, and the INCOSE International Workshop is held in January in the United States.

Currently, there are about 70 local INCOSE chapters globally with most chapters outside the United States representing entire countries, while chapters within the United States represent cities or regions.

INCOSE organizes about 50 technical working groups with international membership, aimed at collaboration and the creation of INCOSE products, printed and online, in the field of Systems engineering. Working groups exist for topics within systems engineering practice, systems engineering in particular industries and systems engineering’s relationship to other related disciplines.

INCOSE produces two main periodicals: the journal Systems Engineering and the practitioner magazine Insight along with a number of individual published works, including the INCOSE Handbook. In collaboration with the IEEE Computer Society and the Systems Engineering Research Council (SERC), INCOSE produces and maintains the online Systems Engineering Book of Knowledge (SEBoK), a wiki-style reference open to contributions from anyone, but with content controlled and managed by an editorial board.

INCOSE certifies systems engineers through its three-tier certification process. Certification requires a combination of education, years of experience and passing an examination based on the INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook.

INCOSE is a member organization of the Federation of Enterprise Architecture Professional Organizations (FEAPO), a worldwide association of professional organizations formed to advance the discipline of Enterprise Architecture.