Introduction
A research project is a temporary undertaking, with a defined beginning and end, designed to
produce a unique result despite being constrained by limited time and/or funding. The temporary
nature of these projects requires project management skills for meeting prescribed constraints of
quality, time, scope, and budget. These management skills are different from skills needed for
managing a “business-as-usual” operation. The process of working towards a doctoral degree as a
research project is widely recognized in the literature (Lauriol, 2006; Lee, 2008; Pyhältö, Vekkaila,
and Keskinen, 2012) as well as by the participating
candidates.
The main objective of our research focused
on identifying doctoral research
management patterns. Our two main
goals were to identify and compare management
patterns that characterize different
academic disciplines in Israeli universities
and to compare management patterns
of Science and Engineering candidates
from Israel with those of candidates
from Western Europe. In order to attain a