Planning ten years ahead a multidisciplinary nuclear research and technology institute: the case of IPEN

Abstract

Planning is always a problem in government organisations whose mission involves the development of Research and Development (R&D) activities. The current issue of the Nuclear and Energy Research Institute (IPEN), the Brazilian largest nuclear and energy research and technology institute, is to plan the reconciling of long-term ramifications of a large project funded by the Union’s budget with the R&D agenda that is funded by science and technology funding agencies. In the mid-2010, the top management of IPEN approved the implementation of a participatory planning effort involving its internal research community. Based on an information framework derived from a technique known as technology roadmapping, a four step planning process was developed: survey, synthesis, evaluation and decision. Selected results generated in the survey step and discussed during the evaluation step are presented. Conclusions of this experience as well as the questionnaire designed to collect the data are presented at the end of this paper.