A comparative analysis of R&D project evaluation methods

A large number of methodologies for Research and Development (R&D) project evaluation have been developed and reported in the literature over the last few decades. Almost all of this literature focused on the mechanisms and underlying theoretical foundation on which the evaluation methods are based. Very little attention has been paid to the effectiveness and suitability of the techniques, especially a comparison of the techniques. This paper presents a comparative study on a number of classes of R&D evaluation methods based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process. We look into the various factors and characteristics of R&D evaluation methods that affect their suitability. A sensitivity analysis was also carried out to determine the critical factors.