phd in project management pdf

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PhD Management of Projects / Overview

Year of entry: 2024

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The standard academic entry requirement for this PhD is an upper second-class (2:1) honours degree in a discipline directly relevant to the PhD (or international equivalent) OR any upper-second class (2:1) honours degree and a Master’s degree at merit in a discipline directly relevant to the PhD (or international equivalent).

Other combinations of qualifications and research or work experience may also be considered. Please contact the admissions team to check.

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In your application you’ll need to include:

• The name of this programme
• Your research project title (i.e. the advertised project name or proposed project name) or area of research
• Your proposed supervisor’s name
• If you already have funding or you wish to be considered for any of the available funding
• A supporting statement (see 'Advice to Applicants' for what to include)
• Details of your previous university level study
• Names and contact details of your two referees.

Programme options

Programme description

Research in the Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering covers six broad research themes ; aerospace engineering, innovative manufacturing, modelling and simulation, nuclear engineering, resilient systems, and structures in extreme environments.

Our postgraduate research programmes in Management of Projects offer the opportunity to study in a multi-disciplinary team alongside leading academics in the field.

Drawing on our expertise in conflict and dispute resolution, risk management, contracts and procurement, supply chains and inter-organisational relations and sustainable development we drive innovative solutions to promote successful project management. We have strong links with industry and excellent employability. Visit our research projects page to browse our range of currently available projects. 

For entry in the academic year beginning September 2024, the tuition fees are as follows:

• PhD (full-time) UK students (per annum): Band A £4,786; Band B £7,000; Band C £10,000; Band D £14,500; Band E £24,500 International, including EU, students (per annum): Band A £28,000; Band B £30,000; Band C £35,500; Band D £43,000; Band E £57,000
• PhD (part-time) UK students (per annum): Band A £2393; Band B £3,500; Band C £5,000; Band D £7,250; Band E 12,250

Further information for EU students can be found on our dedicated EU page.

The programme fee will vary depending on the cost of running the project. Fees quoted are fully inclusive and, therefore, you will not be required to pay any additional bench fees or administration costs.

All fees for entry will be subject to yearly review and incremental rises per annum are also likely over the duration of the course for Home students (fees are typically fixed for International students, for the course duration at the year of entry). For general fees information please visit the postgraduate fees page .

Always contact the Admissions team if you are unsure which fees apply to your project.

Scholarships/sponsorships

There are a range of scholarships, studentships and awards at university, faculty and department level to support both UK and overseas postgraduate researchers.

To be considered for many of our scholarships, you’ll need to be nominated by your proposed supervisor. Therefore, we’d highly recommend you discuss potential sources of funding with your supervisor first, so they can advise on your suitability and make sure you meet nomination deadlines.

For more information about our scholarships, visit our funding page or use our funding database to search for scholarships, studentships and awards you may be eligible for.

Contact details

The School of Engineering creates a world of possibilities for students pursuing skills and understanding. Through dynamic research and teaching we develop engineering solutions that make a difference to society in an ethical and sustainable way.  Science-based engineering is at the heart of what we do, and through collaboration we support the engineers and scientists of tomorrow to become technically strong, analytically innovative and creative. Find out more about Science and Engineering at Manchester .

Programmes in related subject areas

Use the links below to view lists of programmes in related subject areas.

• Management of Projects in Engineering

Regulated by the Office for Students

The University of Manchester is regulated by the Office for Students (OfS). The OfS aims to help students succeed in Higher Education by ensuring they receive excellent information and guidance, get high quality education that prepares them for the future and by protecting their interests. More information can be found at the OfS website .

You can find regulations and policies relating to student life at The University of Manchester, including our Degree Regulations and Complaints Procedure, on our regulations website .

• Interesting for you
• My settings

Everything you need to know about studying a PhD in Project Management

Part of business & management.

Project Management is an essential aspect of conducting business. Project Management teaches you how to be responsible for projects and strategies within an organisation. You will learn how to plan, meet deadlines, manage budgets, and achieve the objectives set by the company.

Future project managers will develop their skills and knowledge during classes like Leadership, Project Management Tools, Commercial Economics, Risk and Value, Decision Making, Accounting for Projects, Resource Management, Business Ethics, Information Systems, etc.

One of the most important skills you will learn during a Project Management degree is risk management. It focuses on discovering all possible liabilities and difficulties that may occur during the project. It is then up to you to find the best solutions to avoid these obstacles and make sure the project progresses at a steady pace without exceeding the allocated budget and resources.

Other key aspects of Project Management are discovering and arguing their effectiveness, defining the requirements and resources needed, receiving approval, monitoring the progress, and implementing feedback from other stakeholders. After a project is completed, you’ll also have to analyse the results, draw conclusions, and learn from the mistakes.

Students who graduate with degrees in Project Management find job opportunities as project coordinators, project analysts, industrial production managers, administrative managers, and quality experts.

Every step of a project involves a high level of focus, analytical skills, as well as the ability to communicate and make big decisions. Project managers also need to have good communication skills, so they can coordinate work and delegate tasks to different team members. This is definitely not a job for everybody, but as long as you have the resilience and determination to see a project through to the end, you should consider a career in Project Management.

View all PhDs in Project Management . Keep in mind you can also study an online PhDs in Project Management .

Interesting programmes for you

Specialisations within the field of business & management.

• Project Management
• Business Administration
• Entrepreneurship
• Management Studies
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• Supply Chain Management & Logistics
• Agribusiness
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• Corporate Communication
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Executive MBA
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• Innovation Management
• International Business
• Master in Business Administration (MBA)
• Master in Management (MIM)
• Retail Management
• Risk Management
• Strategic Management
• Engineering Management
• Transport Management
• Digital Media
• Digital Marketing
• Actuarial Science
• Construction Management
• Management of Creative Industries
• IT Management
• Operations and Quality Management
• Marketing Management
• Financial Technology
• Fashion Management
• Financial Management
• Advertising

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To read this content please select one of the options below:

Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, conducting a phd as a project: sharing insights from my doctoral journey.

International Journal of Managing Projects in Business

ISSN : 1753-8378

Article publication date: 30 August 2022

Issue publication date: 7 November 2022

The aims of this paper are to mobilize project management concepts in order to draw parallels with the doctoral project and to share the author’s experience and lessons learned.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper is based on a qualitative inquiry using an autoethnographic approach.

This paper contributes a self-reflexive examination of the doctoral project experience that incites current and future doctoral students and early-career researchers to take advantage of opportunities that make the experience satisfying, lay the foundations of an academic career and help ensure the thesis is completed in a timely and orderly manner.

Originality/value

Examining the doctoral project through the lens of one of the highest standards in project management, developed by the Project Management Institute (PMI), this paper enables PhD students in project management and other fields of study to understand the basics of a project and take action to structure their doctoral journey in a way that enhances both their experience and chances of success.

• Project management
• Doctoral studies
• Autoethnography

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the research department of HEC Montréal, which contributed financially to support the presentation of papers at scientific conferences. The ideas in this paper were initially presented at the Doctoral Colloquium at IRNOP conference, 2019 in Melbourne. The author is also grateful to the three anonymous reviewers who provided very valuable comments and suggestions.

Brunet, M. (2022), "Conducting a PhD as a project: sharing insights from my doctoral journey", International Journal of Managing Projects in Business , Vol. 15 No. 7, pp. 1032-1047. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-08-2021-0212

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Managing your PhD as a project: Principles of Project Management

Slides here provide an overview of a training session I deliver for postgraduate researchers on the principles of project management and how to manage a PhD as a project.

Related Papers

vicky mabin

Andrew Spowage

Robert MacIntosh

For many people, their dissertation represents the largest piece of written work they will have had to produce to date. Managing your dissertation as a project is a sensible, and some would say necessary, part of the process. Good project management can be as important as your own writing or the inputs of your supervisors. The problem is that projects and people differ so there is no single recipe for success. The research topic, methods, supervisors and your own way of working are all key aspects of developing a workable plan for your research and whilst every project is different there are some helpful practices which help. Managing a research project is similar to managing any other type of project: following some basic rules minimises the chances of things going wrong as well as making the whole process more enjoyable and productive. The purpose of this chapter is to offer some guidelines for managing the research project. It will start with the general project management items ...

InSITE Conference

Dorit Tubin

Aim/Purpose: Continuing low percentage of on-time-completion of doctoral studies suggest the exploration of new approaches to the process is desirable. Background: PhD studies may be viewed as a project- it is a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product. Project management practices have proven to be helpful in numerous domains. Methodology: Process analysis method will be applied, using: 1) semi-structured interviews with supervisors and supervisee, 2) data gathered by the school of advance graduate studies in higher education institute. Contribution: The research will explore the appropriated measurable indicators of successful PhD and identify project management practices that promote better process and outcomes of PhD studies. Impact on Society: Better and more efficient process will support lower individual and national spending on doctoral studies Future Research: Further research should explore relevance of the findings in various settings (characteristics of t...

Christina Chin

Martin Locock

This study explores the experience of lead academics undertaking externally funded projects within HEIs in the United Kingdom through qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews. It had been expected that the study would reveal that many HEIs had adopted formal project management practices in order to monitor progress, identify and deal with issues that arose, and embed lessons learned from projects into organisational learning to inform future practice. It was found that this was not the case, and although elements of, or equivalent to, project management best practice were in place for monitoring and reporting on progress, there appeared to be little attention paid to the question of transferring knowledge derived from experience from the project team to the rest of the organisation. The lead academics involved approached their work with diligence and enthusiasm, and found themselves subject to complex social situations and feelings of impostorship, and undertaking a signif...

International Journal of Project Organisation and Management

Denis Thuillier

Procedia Computer Science

gunnar widforss

Marcus Lindahl

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss and critically examine how formal project management (PM) tools and techniques affect the organization of university research. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is empirically grounded and explores how university researchers respond to an increasing emphasis on formalized PM methods to manage research work conducted within the university. The empirical material consists of 20 interviews with research staff working with engineering, natural and medical sciences at Uppsala University, Sweden. Describing how PM techniques are increasingly imposed upon the researchers, the paper analyses different modes of relating to the formalized toolsets, and discusses their accommodation and resistance within academia. Findings – One key finding is how the PM formalization is resisted by partial accommodation and containment. This can be described in terms of an enactment of a front- and a backstage of the research organization. At the front-stage, formal PM technology and terminology is used by specially appointed research managers as means of presenting to funding agencies and other external parties. At the backstage, researchers carry out work in more traditional forms. Practical implications – The findings indicate a challenge for research to comply with increased PM formalization and secure on-going open-ended research. Second, the paper points toward a risk of young researchers being nudged out into “front-stage” administration with little chance of returning to “backstage” research. Originality/value – This paper builds upon a growing area of the critical analysis of PM practice, offering insights into the tension between the values and norms of university research and an on-going formalization of PM in some organizational contexts.

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• 04 January 2019

Six project-management tips for your PhD

• Angel Santiago-Lopez 0

Angel Santiago-Lopez is a PhD candidate at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

In my experience, a PhD project sometimes feels like it demands more time than is possible — especially if you were hoping to maintain a healthy work–life balance. In my view, every graduate-school curriculum should carry a course on project management.

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Nature 573 , 153 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-07860-6

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Home > PMGT > Dissertations and Theses

Dissertations and Theses

Theses/dissertations from 2020 2020.

Challenges to Adopting Hybrid Methodology: Addressing Organizational Culture and Change Control Problems in Enterprise IT Infrastructure Projects , Harishankar Krishnakumar

The Difficulty With Introducing Project Management Techniques in Digital Startups , Isabela Mantilla

Theses/Dissertations from 2018 2018

Reasons for Success and Failure of Projects , Tamunogbenye Dago

Impediments in Transitioning to Agile Time-boxing Testing Efforts , Taniya Dasgupta

Implementing Agile Methodology Techniques in Automobile Industry , Nikhil Kranthi Datrika

The Role of Project Management in Fostering Creativity: Towards Successful Architectural Design Projects , Angeliki Giannoulatou Destouni

Implementing Project Management Principles in Digital Advertising Age , Yuanqing Jiang

BIM and Project Management in AEC Industry , Nazanin Kamyab

IMPACT OF MOTIVATION ON PROJECT TEAMS’ PERFORMANCE IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY , RAMU KARANAM

Adopt Agile Methodology for Building Wealth Management Platform Building , Mandar Shripad Kulkarn

STUDY ON RECOVERY OF BAD SOCIAL MEDIA REVIEWS IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY USING PROJECT MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES , FRANCK LEGRAND

AGILE ADOPTION IN INVESTMENT BANKS , JIAYIN LIANG and Suman Shekhar

SCRUM IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY TO IMPROVE PROJECT PERFORMANCE IN DESIGN PHASE , YINGCHEN LIU

IMPROVING SOFTWARE PROJECTS WITH CLOUD COMPUTING , SUNIL MADDIPATLA

BUSINESS PERSPECTIVE E-BANKING SYSTEMS IN INDIA , DIVYA NALLURI

Applying the Agile Mechanism in the Clinical Trails Domain for Drug Development , Jitendrakumar Narola

IMPLEMENTING AGILE LEAN IN TELECOM INDUSTRY , SWAPNIL NARVEKAR

Internet of Things (IoT) and Changing Face of Project Management , Vikram Singh Prasher

Risk Management in Telemedicine Projects in Healthcare , Shalini Sakinala

Study of the impact of team morale on construction project performance , Adrian Gerard Saldanha

Key Competencies for Project Managers: An Empirical Study , Sahil Sandhu

IDENTIFICATION OF RIGHT LEADERSHIP STYLE FOR AGILE TEAMS , AASHIK SEKHARAN

ROLE OF EFFECTIVE QUALITY RISK MANAGEMENT IN DRUG SAFETY PROJECT , Bhawna Sharma

SOFT SKILLS INFLUENCE IN PROJECT MANAGERS IN THE CLOUD SPACE , KATHERINE SILVA

Managing Business Process Transformation Projects Using Contextual Hybrid Agile Methodology , John Tu

Using IOP as a mechanism for project team management , Maryam Selah Varzi

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN LEADERSHIP STYLES AND JOB SATISFACTION IN LUXURY RETAIL PROJECT , CUIPING ZHANG

Theses/Dissertations from 2017 2017

Applying Agile Lean to Global Software Development , Piyansh Gupta

Agile in Construction Projects , Chen Jin

Role of Agile Methods in Global Software Development , Dinesh Chandra Kalluri

Innovation through Agile Project Management , Raju Kona

The Use of Effective Risk Management in Cloud Computing Projects , Usha Kiran Marichetty

Feasibility in Applying Agile Project Management Methodologies To Building Design and Construction Industry , Roy S. Moriel

Pharmacovigilance: The Role Of Pharmaceutical Companies To Protect Patients From Adverse Drug Reactions , Srikanth Nukala

Team Performance and Project Success , Ijeoma Okoronkwo

Key to Success of Offshore Outsourcing , Deep Patel

Implementation of Agile Methodology in Public Sector , Kajal Patel

Project Manager’s Perception of Agile Methods Success , Ankit Sachdeva

Adapting Agile in Regulated (Pharmaceutical) Environment , Prachiben K. Shah

The Implication of Agile & Traditional Method as a Practice in Pharmaceutical Industry , Vishant Shah

Project Management for E-Commerce Businesses , Jui Tamhane

Critical Risk Assessment and Management in Pharmaceutical Industry , Abida Zameer

Theses/Dissertations from 2016 2016

Improved Sprint Results with Offshore Indian Teams , Fnu Abdul Hasheem

A Different Approach to Project Management: The Use of Soft Skills , Hannah Adams

ERP Critical Success Factors: Importance of ERP Consultants in ERP Implementation , Adekunle S. Balogun

Scrum Sim - A Simulation Game to Learn the Scrum Agile Framework , Anshuman Bassi

Hybrid Project Management Approach for Software Modernization , Chintan Bhavsar

Adopting Agile Scrum , Anirudh Chaganti

Supply Chain Risks: Causes & Mitigation Strategy for the Medical Device Companies , Dipak Patil

Research Paper on Content Management Systems (CMS): Problems in the Traditional Model and Advantages of CMS in Managing Corporate Websites , Elanchezhian Ramalingam

Challenges When Using Scrum in Globally Distributed Teams , Sweta Shah

A Case Study on PPL's Journey to Agile Transition , Jayalakshmi Tenali

To Overcome Communication Challenges in Distributed/Virtual Scrum Teams , Priyamvada Walimbe

Hybrid Agile Approach: Efficiently Blending Traditional and Agile Methodologies , Rashmi Wankhede

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