R2O | Research to Operations

One area of increasing confusion is the difference between the scientific peer review and research to operations processes, and their relative value for a new research byproduct. To some extent, that value depends on the organization or enterprise. But peer review and R2O are two separate processes, and the comparison between them is a matter of “apples and oranges”. They both have important roles but serve different purposes. Scientific peer review exists to make sure that a given research byproduct is valid in the realm of science from which it was derived. While science evolves, the peer review process has a defined starting and ending point, where the end is usually a publication that can be further scrutinized by the broader scientific community. The R2O process, typically internal to an organization, evolves with the progress of a research byproduct and sometimes does not reach a conclusion as it iterates over the lifecycle of a byproduct in operational status. Allow me to illust