MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH PROJECTS – LESSONS LEARNED

Abstract

Project management assists many areas of human activities and recently has been considered as a way to ensure the success of scientific research projects. A primary problem is the need to identify the project’s success factors, which include phenomena, actions, events, and parameters that contribute to the success. The purpose of this study is to identify the management issues and oversights that pose a negative effect on scientific research projects. The study involves a questionnaire, distributed to several managers of research projects conducted within Polish universities. This paper presents the results of assessing responses to two questions of this survey. These questions about project management deal with goals achieved by marginal projects and an analysis ex post. The responses to each question are grouped into five types, on which a frequency analysis is performed. For each group, several conclusions and recommendations are proposed. The results are a first attempt to construct a set of suitable practices for the management of scientific research projects.