Management of research and technological innovation

Summary form only given. Project management literature has demonstrated an evolving awareness of the emerging roles of “leadership” and “project management”. At the same time, although there are acknowledged parallels and complementarities between leadership and management, it has been recognized that they represent sufficiently different demands within any individual project that they should be treated as distinct areas of knowledge and skill. With a suitably skilled visionary leader, who possesses the essential resources to manage the technical team, technological innovations should emerge and be able to progress to an initial prototype within any dedicated research laboratories. Without the presence of these essential leadership and management skills, it is destined to languish and wither within the walls of academic research. Leadership requires a vision of future possibilities combined with the ability to motivate a team to willingly follow and strive to achieve the objectives of the leader. Management, on the other hand, involves the efficient allocation of available resource so that individual tasks, and ultimately the whole project, can be completed. Accepted project management theory differentiates between leadership and management