Success factors of public funded R&D projects

Research and development (R&D) projects which are classified into basic research, applied research and product development are being carried out by industries, academia and R&D institutes. Such projects funded by government agencies are common among nations all around the globe. They are basically aimed at developing national science and technological competence than direct market orientation or commercialization and are in many respects different from industrial R&D projects. Most of them are handled by the academic/R&D institutions. Their target is long term, need high intellectual input, benefits may not be tangible and risk is high. The outcome of such R&D projects is not always successful and the underlying reasons may vary widely. Various factors have been identified and projected: out of which many are common, some are contextual and the rest are even contradicting. Not many attempts were carried out to identify the factors which contribute to the success of projects carried out by academic/R&D institutions, which is of high relevance to the Indian context. Hence in this article, we attempt to review various factors contributing to the success of projects which are funded by the government and grouped them into common eight categories such as type of the project, leader's competence, team, environment, funding and other resources, management support, collaboration and degree of difficulty.