How to Manage a Research Project: Achieve Your Goals on Time and Within Budget

The ability to manage research successfully is vital to every researcher’s career. Whether you are studying for a doctorate, or managing your first research grant or team, it is imperative not only that you achieve your research objectives, but that you can do so within a set timeframe and budget.

Learning to manage any project can make a huge difference to your career, enabling you to complete your research, attain your PhD, show funders you have the necessary skills to deliver research on time and to budget, give you the confidence to manage project teams and stakeholders, plan more effectively, be more organized, build those valuable publications into your schedule, and much more.

The question is: how do you do it?

This guide is based on over 20 years’ experience managing research grants and developing researchers to help you be more effective and achieve your research goals, by:
• Introducing you to the fundamental principles of effective research project management,
• Showing you the eight key skills every successful research project manager needs to develop,
• Taking you through the crucial stages and tasks in every research project’s lifecycle.

This book will also walk you through the tried and tested process used by the author to:
• Identify project stakeholders and prioritize their needs,
• Assess the impact of potential risks to your research and discover tried and tested strategies for overcoming the most common threats,
• Identify what skills and resources your project needs to achieve its objectives,
• Break your project into manageable tasks,
• Work out how long it should take to complete any given project,
• Identify the critical activities you’ll need to monitor closely to make sure you complete your research as planned, and
• Track any project through to completion without using any complicated or expensive tools.

And more!