  In this paper we discuss the growing need for system behaviour to be
validated and verified (V&V'ed) early in model-based systems engineering.
Several aspects push companies towards integration of techniques, methods, and
processes that promote specific and general V&V activities earlier to support
more effective decision-making. As a result, there are incentives to introduce
new technologies to remain competitive with the recently drastic changes in
system complexity and heterogeneity. Performing V&V early on in development is
a means of reducing risk for later error detection while moving key activities
earlier in a process. We present a summary of the literature on early V&V and
position existing challenges regarding potential solutions and future
investigations. In particular, we reason that the software engineering
community can act as a source for inspiration as many emerging technologies in
the software domain are showing promise in the wider systems domain, and there
already exist well formed methods for early V&V of software behaviour in the
software modelling community. We conclude the paper with a road-map for future
research and development for both researchers and practitioners to further
develop the concepts discussed in the paper.
