Abstract:The research and development of complex product systems (CoPS) is highly uncertain and complex, involving many risk factors, and many scholars have conducted research on the risk of the research and development of CoPS in order to improve the success rate of the research and development of CoPS. Based on combing 89 existing literature materials from Web of Science, China Knowledge Network and other databases, the research work on the risk of the R&D process of complex product systems is summarised from three perspectives: risk management, risk generation and risk propagation. Among them, risk management-related research is the most extensive, risk generation-related research has gradually attracted the attention of scholars, and risk propagation-related research has received continuous attention from scholars since 2018. Current risk management research mainly focuses on the exploration of single risk factors, and lacks systematic research on the identification, control and response to risks in the process or life cycle of the CoPS R&D process; risk generation research has conducted preliminary exploration of the interactions between risk factors and lacks in-depth research on the mechanism of risk coupling to generate risk events; risk propagation research has, to a certain extent, neglected the dynamic influence between risk factors and is insufficiently supported by relevant case data. Based on this, research directions that can be further explored in the future are proposed.