Project management in public research organisations: strategic change in complex scenarios

Abstract

The efficient organisation of public research bodies is important to increase the production of scientific research, which is more and more necessary for competitiveness in modern economies. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the new project-based organisation of the biggest public research body in Italy. The analysis shows that unless project management is properly designed and implemented within Public Research Bodies (PRBs), it tends to become unmanageable over time, creating conflicts, confusion and the proliferation of communication channels, which lead to information log jams. The reality is that the Italian National Research Council (CNR) has never really implemented project management rules; as a matter of fact, because of coordination and area problems as well as the public structure of CNR, it hybridises project management rules with the old organisation since this is the only way to cope with a turbulent and uncertain domestic context.