The Management of Sustainable Research Agendas

In the context of conducting research, planning is obligatory for work success. A research agenda is familiar to professionals working on research and funding projects in universities, research institutes, government agencies, and businesses, and successful researchers understand how to manage projects effectively through proper planning. This dissertation aims to demonstrate how to create, develop, and manage sustainable research agendas by integrating research project management with a research agenda-building process in the form of a consistency model composed of standardized procedures. The proposed model is demonstrated in the unique form of a Markov process that uses an estimation method of transition probabilities. This dissertation also includes a performance evaluation metric for calculating a total effective management value (TEMV) to monitor research projects’ progress and examples are given to demonstrate how to implement the proposed model and method. Furthermore, the results can be used in decision-making processes to modify the research agenda if circumstances change. This dissertation’s major contribution is that its proposed model can be used as a platform to direct and improve research activities as well as curriculum design in education. Likewise, grant proposal writers and researchers can use this dissertation as a guideline or “road map” to help them manage future research projects effectively, achieve their goals, satisfy funders’ expectations, and position themselves favorably to compete for future funding opportunities. Because the model is based on simple-to-implement techniques applicable to any research field, professionals can adapt it to fit the unique characteristics of their research areas and their disciplines