Using fuzzy analytic network process for selecting technology R&D projects

Abstract

Technology development programs have proven to be useful strategies for governments to encourage private firms to undertake R&D projects. Due to limited budgets, a government must select proper R&D projects for funding. R&D project selection is full of uncertainty and can be viewed as a multiple-criteria decision that is normally made by a review committee. In this study, we propose a fuzzy analytic network process method to handle interdependency among evaluation criteria and integrate the divergent judgements of experts in a R&D project selection committee. Our findings suggest that ‘scientific and technological merit’ and ‘project execution’ are the most important criteria and, moreover, indicate that the relative importance of evaluation criteria changes in different degrees of uncertainty.