R&D PROJECT PRIORITIZATION USING ANALYTICAL HIERARCHY PROCESS

Abstract

Research refers to the activities that aim to either discover or develop scientific techniques that enable us to improve the living standards of mankind. In a financially constricted economy, the goal of funding relevant R&D projects becomes a vital consideration for any funding organization. The shortlisted project has to satisfy certain parameters that fulfill the organization’s vision and objectives. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the criteria for ranking research projects, and eventually, to propose a hierarchical framework for projects evaluations. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is a decision making approach wherein the available alternatives are ranked using a hierarchy of criteria. The method of pairwise comparisons is used to gauge relative importance of these criteria and alternatives. The main advantage of using AHP is to combine both qualitative and quantitative judgments according to their relative weights of importance. To begin with, a comprehensive hierarchy of criteria was developed for short-listing research projects, based on the related literature survey. This hierarchy was then converted into a survey form to ask experts about each criterion and it importance for selecting research project. Then, a nation-wide survey was conducted to obtain feedback for this hierarchy from academia and R&D organizations. The objective of this survey was two-fold; first, (1) to determine the relative weights of all the criteria whilst selecting the research projects, and then (2) to trim down the criteria of low-importance by using data analysis techniques. The second objective is of high significance due to the fact that too many criteria may lead to an information overload for the decision maker. From the data analysis, a final abridged hierarchy was proposed that was then tested against empirical data drawn from R&D projects sponsored by a local defense organization.