Study of the Management for Successful R&D Projects Supported by Public Funds

There are various factors associated with success or failure of R&D projects, such as maturity of the technology, circumstances surrounding R&D systems within companies and environments for commercialization of R&D projects. For R&D projects supported by public funds in particular, it has been difficult to clarify what makes R&D projects successful, because such projects were caught in the idea that they must naturally succeed. What is really required in utilizing public funds for R&D projects, however, is ensuring the public funds should be used most effectively, by making R&D projects truly successful. To do so it is very useful to analyze past cases and identify success factors that can be easily followed. In this study, surveys and interviews were conducted for past publicly supported projects, and success factors were extracted based on the circumstances of the projects by using statistical methods. It was confirmed that the quantitative results were quite consistent with the qualitative anticipation. After streamlining the success factors, further examination of each success factor was carried out for realizing proper management of projects supported by public funds. Next, the guidelines for selection and process management for publicly supported projects while making the best use of these success factors were presented. That is, satisfying the success factors should be a requirement for public support from the start during the selection stage. However, in some cases it is desirable to adopt projects even though the success factors are not satisfied at the time of selection, when such projects are expected to provide extraordinary results in the future. In such cases, executing proper process management and leading projects in a manner that satisfies the success factors is indispensable.